Try It Tuesday on a Wednesday

 Welcome to my Try It Tuesday Wednesday Special.

I am currently cursed with a lack of natural light to take photos with. Roll on the good weather and longer days I say. Like I said yesterday, with being back at work and trying to fit it good Mum and Summer time during the afternoons, I am lacking a bit of time to fit everything in. I definitely need one of those Time Turners as used by Hermione in Harry Potter to fit more in to my day. So all in all, I would like to apologise for the lighting in these photos. Hopefully, once the rain/snow ends I might get the chance to take some lovely well lit pics again.

 

So this months scrapbooking class was inspired by the beach. Several of my lovely regular ladies have recently returned from a special cruise of the Caribbean. In honour of their once in a lifetime holiday I designed these pages for their fab holiday snaps.

 

This first page was Crumb Cake layered on to Baja Breeze 12"x12". We lightly sprayed the Crumb Cake layer with a blue spritzer (water + reinker). We then created the waves with torn strips of Tempting Turquoise, Pool Party, Baja Breeze, Pacific Point and Marina Mist. We created a Pin Wheel with the Pin wheel sizzlet and Tea for Two DSP. The hexagons were cut after I embossed lengths of Sunshine and Sprinkles Designer Series Paper with the Honeycomb embossing folder. Once embossed it is super easy to cut the shape of the individual hexagons. We finished with a title stamped in Island Indigo using the Notable Alphabet.

 

The second of our beach pages used the lovely By The Seashore stamp set as its focus. The colour scheme is Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake, Basic Grey & Soft Suede. We stamped the background and layered our photos on to First Edition Speciality Papers and tore the edges (and daubered the edges). The embellishments used are Linen thread, mixed Neutrals buttons and buttons from the Naturals Designer Buttons set.

 

All in all, we had a lovely class and I think we all really enjoyed creating these two beach related pages.

If you'd like to find out more about scrapbooking and Stampin' Up! I would be more than happy to help. Now is a PERFECT time to place a Stampin' Up! order as not only do we have the freebies you will receive with a £45 order during Sale-A-Bration but I am still running my 'Win A Big Shot' draw. The odds are looking good, so get your order in ASAP to be in with a chance to win ;0)

Happy Crafting ;0)

-X-

Wow, three posts in one day!

My final post for today. But I've saved the best for last. This is my favourite LO of my weekend and I themed it around the idea of a Rainbow (Paige hinted this might be the subject of an upcoming challenge LO). I had seen a similar idea with buttons in a scrapbooking catalogue. So I attempted my own version- a Christmas Rainbow. And I am over the moon with how it turned out. This now joins this LO as my two all time favourite pages. And this page also confirms for me that all the time and money I have invested into improving my scrapbooking has been well worth it. Equipped with the simplest of papers, but using the best tools and embellishments you truly can create something effective and capturing the moment beautifully. I guess having the right tools around me inspires me and gives me confidence.

For this LO I used my Brights and Regals Stampin' Up! buttons (the best quality crafting buttons I have come across- not that I am biased or anything!) along with a base of Old Olive, Real Red and Certainly Celery C/S (12x12 textured). All the added ribbon and embellishments were taken from a big stash box some lovely ladies had brought along to the retreat. They bring it along for us all to go through and use if we want. I was so grateful as I managed to create some stunning details using their stash ;0)

This final final LO was also created under the theme of rainbows (this is the first time I've created two completely different LOs in response to a challenge prompt). This one is themed around Joseph and His Technicolour Dreamcoat and the photos are from the WCC day out to Southampton last month.

Thanks for stopping by and reading. I realise three posts in one day is a little excessive. I just wanted to get everything blogged and shared following such a successful weekend of crafting.

Happy Crafting to all ;0)

More Retreat Makes

Here are a few more of my Retreat LOs. Many of them are part of the Wight Craft Circle weekly scrap challenge.

Week 49- 'Did You Know'

I reinterpreted the prompt to read 'Don't You Know How Much I Love You'.

 Week 47- 'Whats Your Colour'

Lime of course ;0) I loved this 8.5x11 LO and how I tied it in with what I was wearing that day in Icelandic snow.

 Week 45- 'Blast From The Past'

I chose my childhood dog Tigger as the subject of this layout. 

 And the final two LOs are just ones I did for fun. With the first photo I wanted to do the photo justice as it was my absolute favourite photo that Sam and I took on our Icelandic trip. I wanted the photo to be the focus and to tell its own story. Although I couldnt resist a bit of bling in the form of some Stampin' Up! rhinestones.

 And my final LO was completed using my favourite Sweet & Sour DSP from Stampin' Up! and Rich Razzleberry C/S. I accessorised the LO with some hand made crocheted flowers my Mum made for me using leftover embroidery floss. I found a whole stash of rather embarrassing childhood photos of me in various different outfits. I tied the colours of the LO in with the colours I was wearing in one of the pictures. I also chose the butterfly accents to compliment the butterfly motif of my top in the middle photo.

If you'd like any further info on Stampin' Up! products, please do not hesitate to get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 07830 343830.

Happy Crafting ;0)

Home from snowy Iceland

Hello all ;0) Well I'm back from my super relaxing Reykjavik break and have come back full of beans and crafting ideas. I sat down last night and finally put some of these down on paper. I think my inspiration returned having a whole new set of photos to play with and scrapbook (I have designed about 50 LOs around pictures I took over the weekend- I'm going to be very busy at the WCC Retreat next weekend ;0)

Here are just a couple of the photos I took over the weekend. These were taken on the Golden Circle tour  (and taken during very brief periods over the weekend that it wasn't snowing!). The first is taken where the two tectonic plates meet in Iceland (you can see where the Mid Atlantic Ridge meets and is pulling Iceland slowly apart). So on one part you are stood on the Eurasian plate (I wanted to type Eurovision then!) and on the other you are stood on the N.American plate (I really don't know enough about Geology to explain this all properly! Really need to get my Geologist sister to guest blog and explain it ;0). The second photo is Gulfoss waterfalls. The picture doesn't do it justice or give you any sense of the massive scale of these waterfalls.

 Here is my '2011 Journal' page for last week. I was inspired by a LO Paige completed recently and after she gave me a cropping and resizing tutorial on photo printing software last week I decided to have a play with lots of mini pics. Although this small selection took me about 10 hours to align and size correctly so goodness only knows how she managed 60!!! I also used the WCC Sketch for Challenge 46 to design my page. Not entirely the same as the sketch. But I'm really pleased with how it turned out ;0) Broken my own golden rule though - no thickers in this album. I'm never gong to make it to December- it'll be bursting at the seams! 

 I also made this little mini album last night. I was inspired by the lovely Peg over at Pegcraftalot and the little Meander Book she made recently. However, all my Iceland photos are 6x4 so I had to adapt the Meander Book to fit this size photos (so effectively it ended up nothing like Pegs so I'm going to have another go at that over the weekend!). I did this using two 12 x 12 sheets of Bashful Blue Stampin' Up! cardstock which I then folded and taped together to make a mini album holding 8 6x4 photos. I added journalling tags into the little pockets I'd created between each page, which were finished off with Round Tab punch. The DP is non-SU unfortunately but this mini album could easily be adapted to use any of the Stampin' Up! Designer Papers.

And finally, here is a sneak peak of this weeks card class:

This is the Elegant Soiree version of the Mini Notecard Wallet I made recently. It is created using coordinating cardstock and inkpads and the beautiful Just Believe stampset. I still have a few spaces remaining for my Wednesday night class on February 16th (7pm start, £8 for the class). If you'd like to come along and make this project then please get in touch on poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 07830 343830 to book your place.

Happy crafting ;0)

-XXX-

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-

Retreat Makes

Well, I've been having a real struggle with my camera this morning. I have been waiting for a dry day to use the natural light outside to photograph my LOs. Sadly, this doesnt seem to be on the cards anytime soon. So I've had to take the pictures indoors. None of these are a true representation of the LOs I completed over the weekend. But wanted to upload them asap.

Here goes....

Week 30: 10 Things About... Me!

Week 31: How I Feel About.... Being a Sister

I was really pleased with this LO until I realised I completely forgotten half the challenge. I completed the title half of Week 31's challenge (the 'How I Feel About...' part) but not the colour challenge part of Kiwi, Chocolate, Baja & White! So I've uploaded this half of the challenge and I'll look at doing a colour themed LO for the other half.

  

Week 32: Could It Be Magic?

This is my favourite LO of the weekend and it is the worst picture. I really couldnt capture the detail of this one. I bought some heat resistant acetate and Versamarked a lovely Butterfly borrowed from P's new stampset and then Heat & Sticked it and set Dazzling Diamonds into the glue. I love having a play with a new technique. And I would never have thought of heat embossing onto acetate. But it turned out really well and fitted the 'Magic' theme of the week.

Non challenge related LOs completed:

Roald Day Day & Inventive Crafting

I completed this double LO to fit my new 8.5 x 11 inch page protectors. Sam and I recently visited the Roald Dahl Story Centre in Buckinghamshire and spent ages in their interactive craft room colouring and sticking the two illustrations included in the above LOs. When we'd finished them we blue tacked them to the craft room wall. But I knew I wanted to theme a LO around them so I photographed them and reprinted them when I got home. For this double LO I wanted to capture the fun and colours of being a child and represent how Roald Dahl made me feel when I was young.

King of the Barbecue:



Smores LO:

I also completed a couple of other smaller projects and worked on my Convention swaps but I'll have to post these at a later date ;0) All in all it was a very productive weekend. But I never knew crafting could be so exhausting ;0)

-xxxx-

More Wight Craft Circle Crop Makes...

Here are two more LOs from yesterdays Crop. The 'Water Babies' LO is for Week 28s challenge- 'Traditions' & 'Journalling'. The second one was just for fun using some old baby photos I had in my photo folder.

Had such a lovely day chatting and crafting with the Wight Craft Circle Ladies. Looking forward to our scrapbooking retreat next month even more now.....

Scrap With Us Week 27- What Makes You Happy/ Alter Your Paper

I'm on a scrapbooking roll at the moment.... I completed another double LO last night with two photos I took a month or so ago in my garden (its hard to remember a time when the sun was shining and it wasn't tipping down with rain!?). The challenge was to scrap 'What Makes You Happy' and to 'Alter' your paper.

Well I sat down with a table full of 12x12 papers and cardstock in front of me a bit bewildered. I recently bought a stash goody bag with various papers and accessories in and in that I had 3 printed acetate sheets. One of which was printed with a stitched garden design in orange. I used this as my basis for 'altering' the summer LO. Its a bit of a cheat I know. But I altered the basic Yoyo Yellow CS by layering the acetate print over the top (creating my own designed background). I altered the Only Orange paper with a series of ladybird stamps I have collected over the years (the ladybirds in red are from the Garden Whimsy Stampin' Up! set and the ladybirds in black I bought on holiday in the states back in 2006). I then used my circle scallop and circle punches with the Schoolbook alphabet for the titles.

The colors I used were: Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Only Orange, Real Red & YoYo Yellow. I combined this with the butterfly & ladybird papers from my stash. All in all, I am super pleased with how they turned out. In fact these LOs turned out better than the picture in my head for once ;0)

For any questions regarding Stampin' Up! products, workshops or hostess benefits, please do not hesitate to contact me on either poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 07830 343830.

Scrap With Us Challenge- Week 24- Accessorize

Well, I am completely out of sequence now.... but I sat down last night and did a double 12x12 LO for week 24- Accessorize. I've been thinking about this one for a few weeks now and settled on Christmas themed LOs for some photos I took of two gingerbread houses Sam and I created for his nieces and nephews two Christmases ago. I thought these photos fitted well as Sam and i spent days creating, baking, making, glueing and accessorizing these lovely little houses. We were so proud of ourselves when we finally had them all wrapped and ready to deliver on Christmas day. They were a perfect pressie in a year when we were quite hard up for cash.

Wight Craft Circle- Scrap With Us

Saturday was the Wight Craft Circle crop. I was having a bit of a creativity block (I blame it on the late night Friday at Sam's Stampin Up workshop followed by sitting on the Downs watching the meteor shower!) so only completed two LOs. At the time I really didn't like them and felt like I was banging my head against the scrapbooking wall. But then when I took them out yesterday to show Mum and take these photos I was much happier with them. I really love the 'My Lucky Guilty Pleasure' one. I bought these papers on the off chance having seen them online and they turned out to be perfectly matching (I knew I wanted to use the scanned image of the lucky scratchcard I bought the other day). So, from being disappointed on Saturday it actually ended up that I love them. And to celebrate I made the 6x6 mini LO yesterday ;0)

Scrap With Us:

Week 25 "Guilty Pleasure"

Week 26: "Life's A Beach"

Pictures taken in Hawaii of the Lost location beach. Sadly no cast members or filming the day we were there. But we did get to see all the key beach locations.... Locke's sweat lodge, the burial mounds of Shannon, Boone etc., Sawyer's tent, parts of plane 815 and rows of Dharma Initiative cans and food.

And one final 6x6 just for fun in my mini LO album. My sister when she was little causing havoc in the local nativity play ;0)

Thanks for stopping by and reading. Any questions or queries about Stampin Up or to find out more about the products, just email or call (poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 07830 343830).

Scrap With Us Week 21

Wight Craft Circle Scrap Challenge- Home is Where the 'Soul' is.
I've set myself a bit of a personal challenge scrapbooking wise. My storage box full of odds and ends and scraps seems to be getting a bit out of hand. So I am attempting to use up old bits of card stock and oddly shaped bits and pieces to tidy up and make things a bit more manageable. At this rate I'll need a brand new mansion just to house my crafting supplies ;0)

For this weeks 'Home is Where the 'Soul' is' challenge I went round to my Mum and Dads house and took photos of their house and a lovely home sampler my Mum stitched a few years back. I wanted to give this LO a bit of a home stitched feel. Unfortunately (after all my drawing effort) the photos havent picked up the cross stitching detail I drew on all the way round the outside. Oh how much easier life would be with a mini sewing machine *lol*

I tried out a couple of new tricks as well. Whilst last crafing with Paige I watched her sew buttons onto one of her LOs so I gave that a go (using up the remainder of a box of Playground SU buttons I've had for a little while). And the linen thread matches the feel of the LO a treat ;0)
All in all, a good LO for me! I am getting a little happier and more confident with each scrap challenge week that goes by. I am reading more online (and watching the odd tutorial too) so I am able to think a bit outside the box scrapwise. Although I still see very strong straight lines running through every LO.

Also really enjoying the Paperclipping roundtable blog. Makes me smile each week and has good info on where to go for tips and tutorials.

Right, now two more LOs to catch up with (still stuck with 'A cherry on top')....

And one more final post for the day.....

I have finally gotten around to starting to catch up with the Wight Craft Circle Scrap With Us challenge. I am still two behind. But here is my LO for Week 22 Days Gone By. I borrowed a huge box full of photo albums and loose prints from my Nanny a while ago. I had my fingers crossed for a wedding print of my grandparents and I found a whole wedding album full of beautiful pics of their big day. I think I might be scrapping a fair few of them as they are all so elegant and gorgeous.

So here is what i put together. I wasn't 100% happy as once again the image in my head looked a lot different to the finished product. But I will have another go at a later date with a picture of my Nanny in her wedding dress and try and create my perfect vintage LO.

Products used: Mini Catalogue Night and Day Papers, Pretties Kit.

Saturday's WCC Crop & Scrap With Us

Well first, apologies for my long absence from blogging! I cannot believe its mid July almost already! I took last week off work and have had sporadic internet access. Had a brilliant week just chilling. Went camping for a couple of nights with my mum and sisters (I say camping, we slept for one night in a tent, the next I chickened out as it was too chilly and slept on a blow up bed on my Mum and Dad's front room floor *lol*)

Saturday was my third Wight Craft Circle crop in Binstead. And what a productive day I had! Probably due to 1) having some great photos to work with and 2) I had actually done some design and planning towards my LOs before leaving the house (which is invaluable when packing stash to cart along with me on the bus!). I decided to work on a few of the current and previous Scrap With Us challenges. I created LOs for:

Week 08- Scrap Your Family

This is my absolute favourite LO to date. I took inspiration from a poster i have seen about the island which has used a similar tree photo idea. I took the idea and drew this myself free hand and made it my own. It takes up almost a full 12x12 piece of paper. I had thought about adding a title and embellishment. But actually I love it just plain and simple as is. I didn't want to overcomplicate it. I'm letting the photos speak for themselves with this one....

Week 20: Cream of the Crop

Well, this scrap challenge came along at the perfect time! I had just spent last weekend repainting the exterior of my house with Mum and Dad. I had chosen a beautiful shade of Cornish Cream. My house now looks like a gorgeous cornish fisherman's cottage (well with a bit of imagination it could!). I had looked at a few of Paige's LO's using acrylic paints as a background and had wanted to have a go. Well, rather than use real artists paint I used Sandtex exterior masonry paint instead! I wanted to capture the exact shade I had used to paint the house ;0) And many thanks to Sam for use of her fabulous Cricut for the alphas. I've so got to add this to the top of my 30th birthday pressie list ;0)

And my last LO was just for fun and practice really. My Mum, sisters and I spent a day at Marwell Zoo last week. I have wanted to do a Cheetah (my favourite animal) related design for a while as I received the animal print tissue paper used on this LO as wrapping round some craft supplies I bought a while ago. It was too beautiful to throw away so I have been neatly keeping it in my cardstock box. Mixing the Marwell cheetahs with the photo of my Mum and sisters worked rather well considering the randomness of it.

I have quite a few things to keep you all up to date on in the upcoming weeks. (And I'll also have a lot of pictures to post soon too!) I have a workshop next week which i have designed a lovely make and take for and a gorgeous demo too. My next card class is Saturday July 24th 1-4pm which I also have a few things in the pipeline for (Pictures will be posted asap). And lastly, Mum and I are off to Bicester on Sunday for my upline Michelle's quarterly training. Should be an exciting day of meeting other demos and just generally talking Stampin Up which I cannot wait for ;0) Mum and I spent a whole day last week designing and making (production line style) 16 swaps for the training. Looking forward to seeing what projects other demos bring along to swap.

And a quick advance notice that the lovely Paige and I are sharing a table in the craft tent at the Chale Show in August. If you'd like to come along and find out more about Stampin' Up! I'll be there to answer any questions ;0)

-XXXX-

WCC Challenge #19- Hands of Time

Now I really struggled with this one. Boy did i wish I'd previously invested in the 'Sense of Time' Stamp Set from the current SU catalogue. Might've made life a little bit easier?!

Anyways, here is my challenge effort. I'm not too happy with it and considered not posting it. But I joined in with the Wight Craft Circle challenge as I am completely new to scrapbooking and treat every week as a learning process. My scrapbooking is coming on leaps and bounds. But i also know I am NOT going to like every LO I complete. I have set myself two challenges for next week- 1) find new ways of mounting/displaying pics on a LO which doesnt involve too many straight lines and double mounting (like I do on every single LO) and 2) not beat myself up too badly if the beautiful LO I have in my head doesnt translate quite so spectacularly onto the page.

Wight Craft Circle- Scrap With Us Challenges

I had another lovely day crafting at Paige's on Saturday. As a result i had a very productive day completing 3 LOs for the scrap challenges and gaining inspiration for a fourth which I completed yesterday.

I worked on the two most recent challenges: Week 17 'I'm Feeling Distressed' and Week 18 'Girl Power & the Rule of 3s'. I also completed two earlier challenges: Week 1 'Be Musical' and Week 2 'Use Flowers, Trees or Leaves'.

I have used a mix of old and new photos. I had been wanting to complete a LO for my Great South Run medal for a while but not found the right fit. As it happens I think the 'distressed' challenge worked perfectly ;0) And I managed to coordinate all the papers to match the medal too ;0)

And of all my LOs to date my absolute favourite is my 'Countryfile' LO. This picture was taken of me and Sam with Adam Henson on Friday at the Good Food Live/Gardener's World show. I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to watching Countryfile and I adore the 'Adam's Farm' features each Sunday.

Enough chatting, more photos......

Week 2: Use Flowers, Trees or Leaves

Week 17: I'm Feeling Distressed

Weeks 2 & 18 (Double Layout): Be Musical & Girl Power/Rule of Threes