Callie Cat in the Garden

Our little kitten, Callie, having a jaunt out in the garden at 8 weeks old. Yes, I finally had time to do a layout - even though I've been interrupted several times (including when the kitten decided to use our granddaughters toybox as a litter tray - how unco-operative of her!). She actually hated being outside - too many sights and sounds to take in all at once I suppose - but she did enjoy sitting with me watching the fish in our pond. Somehow, I don't think our thoughts were the same at that moment. Lily the dog has been no trouble at all - even though she's not at all used to having a little kitten around the house (Bagpuss, our old cat, had been an outside cat all his life, and we had him before we had Lily). Callie's attitude towards the dog has taken a little longer to become amiable. She's learnt that hissing and spitting at Lily just encourages the dog to want to sniff kitty-bottom and so she has now begun a new tactic... She has discovered that the dog is actually a bit afraid of her (after Bagpuss, I'm not surprised!). Callie sneaks around the dogs basket and tries to pounce on her unexpectedly. The dog whines and runs away - of course, the kitten just thinks this is all part of a fantastic funny game and starts hurtling around the front room like some sort of demented furball! Mayhem ensues until I manage to catch the little criminal-minded feline and the dog gets her peaceful sleep in her basket again.
I used a Prima paper called Grape Twilight, and cut out the middle so I could lay another paper behind - one sheet from a book I have of My Minds Eye papers - the Jen Wilson Collection. Of course I stitched! I didn't make any of the flowers myself this time though - just layered up some I had from Prima (the E line collection). I also used the leftover paper bits to make some butterflies from two punches I have, and stamped the lettering on punched circles then layered them up onto punched flowers to make it all stand out a bit. Not too much distressing technique this time - but I did use Ranger inks a little to blend in the colours of the papers and the photograph.

Lilypad likes bubblebath!

My grand-daughter, having a whale of a time in the bath! She loves bubblebath and puts the bubbles on her head, blows them over me... and even eats them!
I used a page from a Sara's paper pad, the rest is all me - no distressing this time, but still lots of stitching, and circular dome stickers that I used as bubbles. I also doodled a few bubbles with a white gel pen. It was great to finally find a use for the lettering - I've had it for so long, sat in a drawer after buying 8 sheets of the letters for the bargain price of £1.50.
I was going to use a lot of "Little Mermaid" and "Nemo" characters - but in the end decided that Lily needed to be the star of this particular layout. With my new kitten trying to eat every bit of thread and paper, this one took a couple of days - but even though it's not my usual style, I think it's growing on me :)

Dandelion Dreams

I had such fun making this LO! It's an idea I had a while ago, with lots of different things I wanted to incorporate into the layout - including the flowers in the picture being the only colour in a black and white photograph. Of course, it ended up almost nothing like I first planned! The photograph is of my two eldest daughters on one of their first days together at school. They started the same year, but at different times of the school terms because of the difference in their ages. They were so excited to actually have a full day together in school (but that didn't last long though *lol*). I made such a mess making the roses - lots of scrunching up with paper and gesso (and inks and starburst stains)- and thoroughly enjoyed every messy moment. The butterflies were easier - but took a lot longer as I waited for each layer of kids glaze to dry. I get so impatient! Of course I had the usual blank cardstock to start off with, and lots of distressing and inking just for fun. The stitching had to be there - but I did draw back quite a lot on what I wanted to do. I felt that enough was enough, and anything extra may not work very well - especially with those huge scrunchy flowers! I decided to call the layout "Dandelion Dreams"... almost as a follow-on or accompaniment to the layout I had made a few days back named "Dandelion Wishes".

My Dad...

This photograph is of my Dad - I think it was about the time he and my mum were first married, and it was taken at his in-laws home. I noticed the wedding band he has on, so maybe it was around 1966.
I love my Dad so much - the back of he LO explains that every man I've ever known has had to live and measure up to my Dad... only my husband ever achieved that. I've used the back of layouts for journalling a lot recently - and I like the idea of turning scrapbook pages to read something on the back of each page. It's like I'm writing a "Life Book"... MY life, for everyone who wants to read about it, can do so just by turning a page.
I used plain cardstock and lots of distressing, inking, stamping... and stitching of course. No flowers this time - I tried to de-feminise the layout and make it masculine. I hope I achieved that. The colour choices all came from the photograph itself - I wanted to use all blues and greys and only use red on the stitching and header. The wording ("DAD") is from the Monograms sizzix die cut alphabet - I layered the letters to make it stand out a bit more. The birds (also sizzix die cut from the same die as the branches) were doubled up so I could use some 3-D foam under the wings to give a little bit of extra texture and interest to the page.
I loved doing this layout... the stitching took quite a while - but I'd have happily spent days doing it. I'm pleased with the end result.

Dandelion Wishes

The photograph was taken after my 2nd daughters first full day at school... after the school day had finished, she and her sister played in the park swapping tales of new friends and teachers, teaching each other new games - and Katie tried to tell the time by blowing at a dandelion tuft.
Core'Dinations cardstock was used for the background paper, and I decorated it myself... using a white gel pen and also stitching to create the white dandelions on the background, and embellished these with little tiny glass beads I had in my stash drawers. I decided to use two oval shapes to frame the photograph - and instead of using paper or cardstock, stitching seemed a nice, plainer, alternative. Machine stitching around the edges (took me ages... darn sewing machine! *lol*), and a little inking finished it off. Funny thing is, this ended up nothing like what it was supposed to be - I preferred to keep it less fussy and let the work done on the background papers stand out on it's own and compliment the photograph. No added flowers, ribbons, buttons, brads or Ranger inks. Not like me at all!

Little Tyke...

My son when he was just a little tyke - he's 24 this year! I set myself a task with this layout... to try NOT to use things... On my 'not to use' list was Ranger Inks and any Die-cuts - I felt almost naked without my inks at the table *lol*, but still used distressing techniques on the Core'Dinations paper and lots of stitching in blues, green and red (to bring out the colour of the tricycle seat). For the papers, I used Basic Grey "Poplin" (from the Urban Couture collection) and Core'dinations paper. I also used Papermania Dewdrops (Aqua) and Anita's Fairy Wings Dimensional Stickers (Blue Mountain Butterflies). The stickers are printed in holographic sticky paper - and the holographic shine just didn't match with the layout, so I had to trim all the butterflies and get rid of the bits I didn't like. Because of my decision not to use die-cuts, all the embellishments were handcut... what a task!

Mixing it up...

I wanted to see if I could successfully mix my usual style of grungy/distressed/psuedo-vintage, with something different... cartoon characters. I had the perfect picture of my middle daughter Katie when she was just a little-ickle girl on an outing in Lymington with her Daddy. She had on Disney trousers with Mickey Mouse on them - but he was dressed in oranges rather than his usual red trousers. So, I used the trousers she wore that day and based everything within the layout on those. I chose some papers that, although they didn't quite go together themselves, seem to blend nicely with what I hoped to achieve. The papers are: Core'dinations (colour stack, orange), Imagination Project Gin-X 'Pyramid Jacket' (from the Desperately Seeking Summer collection), and K&Co 'Daffodil Plaid'. I used a small flower punch and a medium butterfly punch as well as a 'round the edges' border punch for decoration. The Pluto and Mickey characters are made by me - just drawn, coloured and then glazed (glazed with childrens craft glaze). As usual, I had to do some handstitching - round the heart and also to highlight Katie's dirty shoes. I decided to do a 'XOXOX' pattern a little on he edges of the paper too. My Ranger Inks in Peeled Paint and Dried Marigold came in handy for bringing a lot of the mismatched colours in the papers together. All in all, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Quickest LO ever (for me*lol*)

My Mum-In-Law with my grand-daughter (her great-granddaughter, of course!) taken in January this year. I just loved the way they interacted - like Lily was hanging onto every word out of her Great-Nanna's mouth...
The patterned paper is from Me&MyBigIdeas, and the rest of the paper is stamped and inked by me with Ranger distressed inks (Black Soot). All the roses and also the butterfly were from a wedding favours stash I had in a drawer - had to come in useful one day :)
The whole LO from beginning idea to end product took less than 3 hours - which is PDQ for me! Though I will admit that I think the speed in which I completed this LO does show somewhat... but it's not too bad.

Finally got a page done!

I love this photograph of my brother - it was taken at Farley Mount in 1980. I had bought a "Kodak Ektra 12" camera with my birthday money that year, and that little (very almost useless) camera went with me everywhere. Every now and then, a photograph would be developed that I knew would be a "keeper" - this was one of them. Not bad for an amateur 11 year old.
For this layout, I used a basic grey paper called Passe (from the "Archaic" range). What's quite unusual about this layout is that all the elements are sewn on either by hand or done with the machine...
The oak leaves and the bird were made in the same way - using pages from an old book, I cut out the shapes I wanted, then used gesso over them. I also used Ranger Distress Inks all over these elements, and also all over the layout :)

My Mr Perfect

I never claim that I have the perfect man... just that I have the perfect man for me - My Mr Perfect. He really is my soul mate and other half (though he says "better half"). The photograph was taken last year at the New Forest - a favourite haunt of ours, though we haven't managed to go lately. For this layout I used a core'dinations whitewash paper and totally demolished a K&Co paper called (get ready for this one... it's a mouthful!) Mira Citrus Botanical Die-cut Glitter Thermography Paper. Tim Holtz made his usual appearance - walnut stain this time, just to darken and distress the edges, and I finally used my Gesso! I used it first to blend in the photograph to the background cardstock - after sanding the photograph edges. I used it also to make a lot of the swirls and flourishes, building the gesso up over a space of time (2 days) and waiting for it to fully dry before sanding it lightly to get the effect I wanted. A few green pearls to swirls around, a bit of doodling with white, black, and green pens, a bit of sparkly fabric lettering... and it was finished!

Dreamer

My youngest daughter, Beth - she's 16 this year... how time has flown! I hated these papers when I got them - but then realised that they matched perfectly the colours of Beth's dress in this gorgeous picture of her (and then decided I really liked them after all). The papers are all Jenny Bowlin - "Tangerine Bookprint" "Love Song" and "Flight". I used a mixture of Ranger inks - Faded Jeans and Antique Linen to distress and ink the edges of the pages. The flowers were all made from scraps of the papers I used, and the butterflies are all punched from leftover papers using 3 punches I had bought for 99p each :) Then I used Gold Pearl Liquid Pearls to dollop around on everything *lol* The only thing I'm a bit unhappy with is the large butterflies - the silicone gel left grease marks coming through the papers :(

Sibling Symmetry

I love this photo of my two eldest children. That year, Naomi copied everything her brother did - it was so sweet! I used basic grey (sultry) and Crate Paper (Trendy) with lots of stamping (La Blanche and Heidi Swapp)... plus all my fave techniques - distressing, inking, handstitching, buttons, flowers, lacing ribbon, Martha Stewart edge punch... and the butterfly was part of a gift tag my youngest daughter gave to me.

Thawing Out...

The snow is a distant memory now - not even a slushy mess to look at, just raindrops and puddles (though I do like the rain). So, a chance to scrap a photograph while the weather isn't so clement... This one was taken just as the snow began to thaw, and within a couple of hours of this photo being taken, there was little snow left to be seen. Once again I chose plain cardstock and patterned it myself - using a lot of distressing technique - even on the edges of the photograph. Everything was inked up with Ranger Ink, and lots of co-ordinating snowflakes were punched - I thought it'd be nice to place snowflakes in the centre of the flowers instead of brads. I've chosen this grey/brown colour scheme for a snowy LO before... but I do think it works well with this particular photograph.

Happier :)

Finally... The Lace Maker (Part Deux *lol*)
I redid this whole LO from scratch - but still using the original colour scheme (due to the colouring of the lace). I decided that not just the lace needed to be a focal point, but my mum too - who made the lace for me. I distressed scalloped cardstock and then stamped with a glue pad and rubbed over some antique green glimmer mist powder. A note here: When using glue pads (for embossing, etc) have handy a proper cleaner, or spend half an hour with hot water and a cocktail stick trying to clean gluey gunk off of your stamp *lol*... A lesson learned for me. Wording is hand-done by myself, cut from card (my hands ache now) - except the lettering for "LACE", where I used my trusty La Blanche stamp set (again). The letters were then brushed over with glimmer mist powder (as before), and to knock back the colour and seal the powder, I brushed over with Ranger Sepia Accents (fun stuff - easily cleaned off a brush).

Trying something different...

Okay, not different for a lot of people, but this LO is a definite change fom my usual style. LOTS of stitching again (still a glutton for punishment), but this time I tried out my little sewing machine on the layout - just a little around the photo and 'scribbling' around the left side of the photo with stitches (IYKWIM). My daughter, Naomi, actually took this photograph on my phone. Lily (the dog) was just relaxing under the fuschia bush, trying to find a little shade from the sun. I loved the way the colours of the flowers seemed to frame my doggy so beautifully... so of course I chose lots of pinks for the LO - from deep cherry pinks to quite a pale pink, to help bring out the colours of the flowers. I may use this photograph again in another LO - after I've finished scrapping all the other photographs I have *lol*
** Just reposted the LO, because I decided to add a few touches and change it a little - just adding more words to bring n the green a bit more.

The main backing PP is JanLynn "Reverse Leaves in Green" from the spring collection (as are the butterfly stickers)
Smaller piece of PP is from HOTP 4 Seasons (Summer).
Die cut flowers are Papermania "Bright Flowers".