Some more old forgotten layouts...

I'm normally quite a 'neutral' scrapper in that I mostly use kraft or white card as a base and occasionally I might use a pale/simply patterned piece of paper too.  I don't tend to go for bright, primary colours, so this next layout and to some extent, the following one too, feel a bit different to my usual stuff.

Both feature Evie on holiday in France last year.  This first layout documents the relationship between Evie and Toby, a family friend who comes on holiday with us.  They may not see each other for a long time but when they get together it's as though they've never been apart and spend their time giggling and getting into mischief.

'Mischief & Giggles'

'At your happiest on the beach'

The petal shapes are a Sassafras flower embellishments that I cut into sections and used as a border.  My trusty Dymo provided the title and date.

Thanks for reading :)

Some old forgotten layouts...

I was having a look back through some folders on my computer the other night and found a few layouts that I haven't shared on here that I made back in Autumn 2010.

This one is a layout about Evie's first day at  'big school':

I went a bit misting-mad on this layout to create the background.  I stuck down some letter stickers to use as a mask for the 'abc' and '123' bits and carefully peeled them away afterwards before outlining with a brown pen.  

I also used up a lot of old stash on this page.  The 'report card' tag has been waiting to be used for about 4 years!

The journaling reads: 'You'd been looking forward to this for so long and were up and dressed early, raring to go!' which was a good thing as it meant that I got to take some pictures before I had to go to work.  I remember feeling sad at the time that I wouldn't be there to drop her off but it was probably for the best as I wouldn't have been able to hold back my tears of pride and also sadness that my baby was definitely not a baby anymore.

I can't believe that this was almost a year ago.  The last year has gone far too quickly.

 

Crepes...

On our last full day in France, back in June, we found the most amazing creperie.  The food was gorgeous but what really made it, was the surroundings: the view across the bay looking out to sea and listening to the waves whilst the sun shone.  We had a very long, relaxing lunch and definitely want to go back to that restaurant next year.

The supplies are a mix of Studio Calico, Elle's Studio and MME.  I used one of the tags to write our 'order' and used a lot of circles to echo the shape of crepes.  The Sassafras letter stickers are one of my current loves as they're a perfect size for my A4 layouts.

Thanks for reading :)

Mummy and Me...

A while back, a questionnaire was doing the rounds on Facebook, with questions to ask your kids about you.  I thought that it would make a good basis for a layout.  So I copied the questions into MS Word, changed the font into a typewriter style one and then printed it out.  I asked Evie the questions and made a note of her answers.  I particularly like that she thinks I spend my spare time, when she's not around, tidying up!

The supplies are mostly a recent Crate Paper Collection.  The little girl at the bottom was on a journaling card page which I cut out.  To add some detail and to make her look a little like Evie, I embossed her hair, dress and shoes with some Zing powders.  The pink heart post-it note was something that I've kept for a while to include on a page which Evie had written my name on (I have one for the rest of the family too, saved up for future use).  I also got her to sign the page so we have a record of what her writing was like right now.

I plan to do a similar page about Evie and Daddy and think it may be something I repeat each year to see how the answers change.

So Tiny...

Jen and I had another mini-crop this week: scrapping whilst the kids played together.  I'd just received the latest Studio Calico kit and I love the colours and wanted to get stuck in.  The whole thing is just very 'me'.  I particularly like the black chalkboard label stickers by American Crafts which I used as a background for my title.

I must have been a bit distracted though as I originally thought that this was a photo of mine and George's hands and my journaling was all about that.  It was only when I got home and checked the date of the picture that I realised that it was actually Evie that was holding him.  Some cutting and re-mounting of the middle section later, I re-composed the journaling and voila, 'So Tiny', all about my teeny tiny baby and his big sister.  Special moments where she cradles his small hands, whilst knowing that it won't be very long before he's the 'bigger' one. 

Oh and Lou, I gutted the paper!  First time ever!  That pale blue/green paper was too nice to hide behind the kraft, covering my mistakes!

Also, I want to say a big thank you for all of the lovely messages about the DT xxx

News...

I found out last week that I'd been chosen to join Sarah's Cards Ltd Design Team.  Very excited to be working with their team and kits/products.

You can find out about the other new DT members here.

Oliver's 3rd Birthday...

I wanted to record the different presents that Oliver received for his birthday along with some pictures of him too.  Doing A4 sized layouts means that there isn't a lot of room for lots of 6x4 photos so I printed some smaller ones of him to include from a collage I made using 'Picasa'. 

You may remember me writing about my discovery of Pinterest and how I'd used a photo I found there as inspiration for a layout.  Well, I realised that I could also easily create a pinboard of pictures to add to a layout and so created a new board specifically for 'Oliver's 3rd Birthday Presents' and added pins of his different presents as well as text to describe the item and who bought it for him.  I then printed the webpage out onto photo paper, scaling it down in the Print Preview screen until it fit the page. 

Based on this week's sketch at Studio Calico. 

There's loads of '3s' on the page: the large title '3' was created by drawing around a metal number and then colouring in the space using a Versamark pen.  I then added a few layers of embossing powder and heated each time until I was happy with the coverage.  I hadn't intended to add mist to the page but I had a slight 'inky finger' accident at the bottom of the page and ended up using the mist to cover this up.

I love those pictures of my cheeky boy and may well end up using them again.

Beach Baby...

I'm working my way through a bunch of photographs from our holiday in June.  This was a favourite one of George, chilling out on the beach, enjoying playing with the sand (and thankfully, not eating it!).

The papers are a big mix from different Studio Calico kits and a piece of AC yellow woodgrain which Jen kindly gave me.  

I made the journaling tags using a MME label stamp which I then embossed with cream and aqua powders before handcutting and threading onto the twine.  They each have a note of something that George enjoyed doing at the beach.  I added a few splashes of yellow mist and then used my new Smash Date Stamp in the bottom right, adding the date in a couple of different matching colours.  

The last thing that I added was the handstitched frame.  To do this, I marked out the holes using the grid on the paper to help with even spacing.  To achieve the curved corners, I punched out a circle and placed this onto the grid to give me a curved guide to use.  To add a little extra colour, I tied on some little strands of pink/yellow twine to the tag and the frame.

Click on the layout if you would like to see more detail :)

New Glasses...

Back in May, we found out that Evie needed to wear glasses.  It was quite a shock as there were no clues that she was struggling, let alone have hardly any vision in her left eye.  In typical Evie-fashion, she's never complained and taken everything in her stride.  I was worried that she wouldn't want to wear glasses but she was very excited (an episode of Peppa Pig at the Opticians helped, I think!) and was very keen to pick some out; in pink of course!  I'm so proud of the way she's adapted and she's very proud of her pink glasses!

Supplies: Studio Calico papers, Elle's Studio tags, Sassafras and BG for Studio Calico letter stickers, Crate stickers, Fancy Pants filter paper.  

Cropping Space courtesy of Jen :)

Thanks for stopping by.