2 becomes 3...

I love these photos from when Evie and Oliver came to the hospital to meet their new baby brother. They were so excited!

'My heart melted and eyes filled with tears when two became three. I will never forget the look on your faces when you met George. Pure joy and excitement and instant love. So much love.'

1st family outing...

This is the last of my layouts from the retreat. This class was by Natalie and involved making a felt embellishment for the page. As you can see, I didn't actually do this but I did make the little owl afterwards to add to a hanging name plaque for Evie's room.


I absolutely love these papers - very 'me' and enjoyed putting this together. Especially as I could 'zone out' whilst adding the handstitched swirls: I find this really relaxing!

The photos are from the first time we had a trip out as a family of five which was surprisingly easy after the initial stress of fitting the three kids in the back of the car.

The challenge on the Saturday night was to use a canvas that we were given. I decided to use up some of the papers from this kit and create a collaged background using pva glue to stick them down and as a final layer to seal them. I added some glossy accents to the little paper owls and the letters and a length of ribbon to finish. Oliver wants one now!

If you're interested in having a look at the original class designs, they're now showing on the Sarah's Cards blog :)

Going out for a coffee...

Evie and I have a bit of a tradition of, as she puts it, 'going out for a coffee' and I've been meaning to do a layout about it for ages.



I don't often have a plan for a design and this was no different. I pushed paper around for ages to create the mat area for the photos. I then played with some paint and mists on the kraft areas using some brown acrylic paint and a jam jar lid to create a cup stain mark. I think I went a bit overboard though and the whole effect was messy. All was not lost though and I was able to cut the patterned paper part off the cardstock and mount onto a new piece. I then cut out some of the painted rings and stuck these down onto the new layout base and used one as a mat for the photo of my coffee cup. I actually preferred this effect as the rings are now more raised up on the page.

I have Evie to thank for the brown hearts in the pink paper effect. She was playing with some of my punches making cards for her friends and I noticed that instead of using the hearts that she had punched, she was using the negative part and placing paper behing the 'open' heart part. That gave me the idea to create a row of hearts in the pink paper and mount it onto a piece of brown card to use as a border on my page.

The paper's are all MME Stella and Rose (my current favourite line) and I've used a couple of tags from Elle's Studio too. The stamped title was created using two different brown distress inks and some clear embossing powder and the journaling strips were some spare kraft card which I misted with 'coffee' colours before using a corner rounder to create the pointed ends.

I love how it came together in the end but it was definitely a case of a layout 'evolving' to a finished product.

Class Retreats Part three...

'Oh we do like to be beside the seaside...so much that we braved the wind and rain and had great fun at the beach'

This is the layout which I'm most pleased with from the weekend. It looks nothing like Lou's original layout but takes some inspiration/ideas from it. The 'white' area in the middle is actually a transparency which I added 'waves' to using acrylic paint and a glue lid.

The polaroids were made using a stamp from Studio Calico. The photos didn't quite fit the space so I backed them with some patterned paper from the October Afternoon range which we were using.

We were given the twine to tie some tags on/make a minibook but I decided to add a row of stitches which I finished off with a nautical knot. I was going to tie a bow but Jen (Lou's amazing TA) had seen another delegate tie a knot and suggested the idea to me.

The donkey is another first for me: embossing. Lou should me how to use the heat tool (and has kindly lent it to me so I can experiment further). The stamp is from a set by American Crafts and knew I had to use it on this layout as soon as I saw it. Not that you get many donkeys on the beach in France but you get the idea.

Thanks for looking :)

Class Retreats Part two...

This is my version of Vanessa's class which I actually skipped at the Retreat to have some time to myself so instead had a bash at it this past weekend. The colours in the kit are brighter/bolder than my usual palette but I absolutely love how it turned out and might have another play with them. There were plenty of stickers in the kit too to keep me happy. Stickers and tags are my current embellishment of choice :)



The photo was from an autumnal walk and I used it to illustrate how close these two are. Despite the arguments and regularly tormenting each other, they love being together and cling to each other in strange/new situations. I hope this bond stays with them for life.

Class Layouts part one...

Here are the first three class layouts that I did at the Sarah's Cards Retreat last weekend. I'm not one for following instructions or doing as I'm told so, being a rebel, I put my own spin on each of the designs and made them all A4 to fit my albums.

The first class on Friday evening was by Claire and involved lots of handcutting and some misting. I held back on the handcutting as it's not really me and also kept my journaling on the outside as I prefer to be able to see the story. The layout's about how Evie absolutely loves watching 'Strictly Come Dancing' and how we went to see the live show in January 2010.


The first class on Saturday was by Lianne. We took a piece of American Crafts die-cut paper and cut out sections of the individual flowers and leaves before backing them onto other papers and creating a collage on the page behind the photograph. This is the last photo of us still being a family of four taken on a weekend away in Scarborough back in November, a few weeks before George arrived. I also now know how to make my own kraft luggage tags to add to my layouts (apparently everyone knows how to do this and I'm coming to it late!)



The last class of the morning was by Rachael and was all about distressing and layering. Not my usual style at all but I took bits from the original layout and left some off. Again, I kept my journaling visible and I also added stitching and staples.

I love this photo of Evie, Oliver and George. The big two look so happy and George completely content in his older siblings company. If only they were always like this!

George...

I treated myself to some new papers and stamps while I was away. Well, Lou persuaded me that I 'needed' the stamps and as she's such a scary lady, I couldn't argue with her ;) I did resist the set with the donkey in though, although I'm still wondering whether I need that in my life too!

This layout is a bit of a continuation of the first one I did for George and documents things which I want to remember from the first few hours with him (see this post).

The papers are 'Stella and Rose' by 'My Minds Eye' and may well be my new favourite papers: the colours and pattens are really 'me'.

I'd pre-typed and printed the journaling which I misted with cream and blue 'Mr Huey' before cutting and sticking into place onto the bed of punched squares of the different papers.

Back soon with another instalment of layouts from last weekend :)

Being Pregnant...

Bump pictures are few and far between from my pregnancies with Evie and Oliver. This was most probably (definitely according to my other half!) my last pregnancy so I wanted to make sure that I took some shots and recorded how it felt to be pregnant.




I started this layout with the journaling which I typed in MS Word and then printed out onto an A4 piece of white cardstock. I then designed the rest of the layout around this.

The bullet points were made by punching the papers I'd used on the page using my cropodile. I also used my cropodile to punch right through the page for the inside of the circles on the little tags on the photo and bottom of the page.

I'm really pleased with how this layout came together. I love the colours and how the journaling came out. A bit of light misting over the journaling with cream 'Mr Huey' and some doodling for a border finished it all off.

The photo was the last photo of me being pregnant taken on Boxing Day, two days before George was born.

Click the picture for a larger image if you're interested in a closer look :)

3 of a kind...

I'm back from the most fantastic weekend away at Sarah's Cards Retreat. Scrapping wise, I managed 10 layouts: 5 from classes and 5 of my own.

This first layout I'm sharing was based on a sketch that we were given as a challenge on the Friday night.

No I don't have triplets, just 3 children, who at 5 weeks old, all bore an extremely close resemblance to each other!




Lots of layering of paper and stickers. The '3' was created using a metal number as a mask and spraying the cardstock with cream 'Mr Huey' mist and then roughly drawing around the outline that was left. My poor old Dymo machine gave up the ghost on Sunday but not before I got plenty of use out of it, dating my layouts. Definitely need to get that replaced.

More layouts to come this week as I get the finishing touches done and scan them in.

Thanks for looking xxx