Banana Frog part two...

The second part of my work for the Banana Frog blog was published on Tuesday. You can see it here.

It was Evie's 4th birthday on Monday and this layout was about the cake I made for her party...



This layout was about the cards that Evie made for family last Christmas...


Lots of ink, gems and glossy accents!

Fat Face love...

Ever since I saw this layout I have been saving clothes labels to do something similar (she's also one of my favourite scrappers btw!). Looking at the pile of labels and being inspired by making layouts about myself, I felt it was about time to address my love affair with 'Fat Face'.

I've also been in awe of Alexa's work for years now. She has the ability to express herself in such an amazing way. The words and the simplicity of her designs just blow me away. So, my latest layout is an attempt to create something in her style.



The title's a bit cheesy but I'd run out of ideas last night and really wanted to finish it. The papers are Martha Stewart and the letters by Making Memories. Eveything else is from Fat Face. It wouldn't be a layout of mine without some handwritten journalling so I added the date at the bottom, but the bulk of the journalling was done on the computer with a font I found at Dafont.com.

It's my birthday coming up and I've already started a wish list and my first port of call was, of course, Fat Face!

As ever, thanks for looking :)

eta: for some reason I can't copy my journalling over from Word so if you'd like a better read, click the image to see the large version :)

Banana Frog part one...

These are the first layouts for my Guest Designer spot for September. I loved the 'All About Flourishes' set and all the stamping on both these layouts was done using these stamps.




More coming up in the middle of the month...

Been a long time...

My blog has been seriously neglected. Nearly 3 months since I last updated.

What's happened since then?

• We went on our hols to France: lots of sea, sand and sun. Oh, and chicken pox!
• Oliver had his first birthday (not sure how that happened!)
• I've taken lots and lots of photos, particularly for the OU course I was doing.
• I've managed a couple of layouts.
• I've had lots of fun watching my kiddies play together as they grow bigger.
• Been working hard and still enjoying working with my husband. We make a good team. I haven't even missed the long summer holiday that I would have normally had from school: I really have moved on.
• We had a night away to see U2. The most amazing evening.
• I've been working on some layouts for the Banana Frog blog as Guest Designer for September.
• I've just signed up for this course. I haven't done anything for myself for a while and really fancy this.
• Got addicted to online farming.
• Looking forward to Evie's 4th birthday and my thirty-something one!
• Plan to use my blog properly again, especially as I hope to get a lot more scrapping done once autumn and the darker evenings arrive.

I'll leave you with a recent layout of my little boy on his 1st birthday...

More layouts to share...

I was asked a while back to do some Guest Design work for Scrapagogo. The following are the layouts I made using their June kit.



The papers made me think of patchwork quilts so I tried to replicate this using cross stitches to join the pieces together. I also tried to make the Thickers look different in each layout. In this one, I distressed them using an emery board.



I think is my favourite layout that I've done in a while. I liked how it all came together. The flower embellishment was made by using a border punch on a strip of patterned paper and then scoring and pleating to bring it together.


Lots of hand sewing on this layout, both as a border and to embellish the Thickers.


Another patchwork style layout. This time I used the sewing machine to join the papers. I did more paper folding to make the heart which you can see in detail above and my twist with the Thickers this time was to cover them in glitter.

It surprised me how much of the kit I actually used. I need to make sure that I use my regular kit in the same way instead of collecting stash!

Twisted Sketches

I saw a link the other day to a new sketch blog and thought I'd play along: http://www.twistedsketches.com/

I dipped back into some old stash (my favourite thing to do at the moment - I'm loving rediscovering things!) and made my own mask to make the border with some glimmer mist.

I'm enjoying making my own embellishments too - the flower is a strip of paper that has been punched and then folded.



The photos are of Evie 'at the beach' a few months ago. The journaling reads: A rare warm March day in Scarborough. We had to go to the beach. Grandma bought you a new bucket and spade! You spent ages digging and filling your bucket from the sea. Lots of fun!

Apologies for the poor photo!

neglect...

That pretty much sums up how I've treated my blog recently. Not sure if anyone actually reads anymore.

So to catch up:

Oliver is now ten months old. He's crawling, climbing and generally into everything. He's just got his first two teeth too.

Evie makes me so proud. She is so keen to learn and get messy! I gave her my old camera to use and she took some really impressive photos. The teachers at nursery keep telling me how creative and imaginative she is. No idea where she gets that from!

I'm still taking lots of photos. Just a few weeks left of my course and I need to start getting my portfolio together of my best ten shots. These are a couple of my favourites:





Managing to do some scrapping in between running the house and business.

Oh and I'm an Auntie at last! My SIL had a gorgeous little girl called Martha who's now four weeks old.

So, back to the layouts...

Using up some old stash here - papers that I've never touched and some really old bits of ribbon.


Graeme and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary last week. I made this for him in place of a card. Again, using up old stash, particularly some Crate paper that I've had for years.

You never know, I may actually update again within the next month!

Photos...

I started an Open University photography course a couple of weeks ago and any spare time is spent taking pics/reading for it. I thought I'd share some of my work so far as there isn't much other crafting going on around here right now...

From our weekend on Anglesey:






400 steps and we climbed them all!







Some other pictures for my weekly assignments:







and my personal favourite from this week:

Writing 'Evie'

Last week I noticed that Evie had written her own name on a picture that she had brought home from school. It evoked such a strong sense of pride and a rush of love for my little girl (and a tear to my eye too!). I knew that I had to get her to do it again for me so I could use it on a layout. Not only did she write it in perfect, large letters, she also insisted on typing it too! She must have known how good it would look on a page!



Nearly all the supplies are from the April Studio Calico kit.

Journaling reads: It brought tears to my eyes when I saw your name in large, irregular letters. You really are so clever! Not only can you spell and write your name, but you can type it out too!


How cute is that!

Guest Designer spot...

Emma at Ribbonmad was kind enough to ask me to be a Guest Designer for their May monthly ribbon kit.



I decided to use the ribbons as a mat for the photo in place of patterned papers. I tried to embellish the ribbons in a variety of ways, using embroidery, beads and staples to show some different ways in which ribbons can be used.

The journaling reads: You and Patch are totally inseparable. It's almost impossible to find a photo of you without some evidence of your lifelong companion and comforter. He really is truly loved.

I don't believe it!!!

Yes, I've done it. I've actually finished a layout!

I've had this one on the go for well over a month. I love this photo of Evie and her Grandpa from a year ago when she was a flower-girl at my BILs wedding. The papers/flowers were all from a Studio Calico add-on kit and the rub ons are all by Crate Paper. I wanted to keep it simple and let the photo speak for itself so there's just a little bit of journaling along the scalloped edged paper.

Not a great picture of it but as ever, click for a bigger version :)

TFL xx

eta: Gold star goes to Rach for spotting my mistake with the date! Not the first time and probably won't be the last time either that I put the wrong year on a layout. At least it's a sticker that I can peel off and change :) Thanks hun for letting me know!

I've been in trouble...

I got a telling off yesterday for not updating my blog for so long (you know who you are Missy!!!) so thought I'd better do an update.

Working hard but enjoying it. Oliver has settled well into nursery life but has been almost constantly ill for the last month. This has affected his sleeping and ours too unfortunately.

Had a relaxing Easter back in Scarborough. Evie had fun doing an Easter Egg hunt and we were glad of some family time together away from work.

I'm still keeping up with my photo a day. I don't want to bore you with 3 week's worth so I'll just share some highlights (all my pics are on flickr if you're interested).

Not much scrapping happening due to lack of energy and time. I've had one layout on the go for a couple of weeks which I may manage to finish today (you never know!)

I've just signed up to do an Open University photography course which I'm looking forward to so you may see a lot more photos and less scrapping around here in the next few weeks.

One thing I'm enjoying right now is Kirstie's Homemade Home. I've got seriously house envy! It's got me really fired up into getting my sewing machine out for something other than scrapbooking!

Right, some piccies then...

Project 365 - week thirteen

I've begun to realise this week just how much I love taking photos of flowers. A few feature this week as ever. The bluebell and daffodil are growing in my garden right now: signs of Spring.

Where have the last eight months gone?

My little boy is eight months old today!

Right now...

• Everything goes into your mouth!
• You are starting to eat lumpy food like chopped up pasta.
• You love sucking on pieces of bread!
• Your favourite foods are sweet things; fruit and yoghurts
• You're not that keen on drinking water
• Your eyes light up when you see Evie - you adore each other
• You sit up confidently and can reach down for things without falling
• You can do push ups and have started to crawl backwards
• You are desperate to stand up and often arch your back when we try to sit you down to stay standing
• You love to be tickled, especially by Evie
• You like toys which make noises, paticularly your steering wheel toy
• You love 'boinging' in your 'Rainforest Jumperoo'
• You're really happy going in the swings at the park
  
• You enjoy looking at books
• You are getting very vocal. Gaga and Dada are your words of choice

One day soon, this will become a layout :)

Project 365 - week twelve...

Nearly three whole months done!

Had a bit more time for photography this last week and I'm really pleased with the pictures that I've taken.

Sibling love...

Scarborough Castle...

South Bay beach at Scarborough...
Sleeping lion at Chester Zoo. His 'wife' was laid alongside him: it looked so intimate and cosy...
Whilst trying to capture some bubbles, I managed to take this shot of weird-frozen-bubble-blowing action...
This is the rose bush that grows up against our fence. My first shot of the year was of the branches of it in sihouette. I noticed today that it had started to bud and loved the shades of red of the new shoots...
Thought it was about time we had another Oliver shot so we had a mini-photoshot this afternoon whilst he was playing. He was fascinated by this button on his playmat which was handmade by a family friend. I love watching him learn and discover the world around him...