MY LITTLE MINI BOOK (inspiration)

Heres pics of my little mini book . You can buy EVERYTHING you need for it and have a mountain of stash left over to make cards , L/Os , more minibooks etc... in the Personal shopper

All ive done is cut and folded pages out of one sheet that had squares already. Added a few accents that matched and printed my photos super small ,with a lot of journalling . Hope you like & go on make yourself a book of inspiration.

Tomboy!

I really enjoy DIY which I guess makes me a bit of a tomboy, lol!

I used a sheet of white Bazzill for my background and cut scallopped squares from 3 different patterned papers and my photos. The patterned papers are from the March Personal Shopper Kit they are perfect for boyish layouts so for once I stepped away from my usual pink.

To make the title I pencilled in the letters and then pierced holes before threading them with ribbon (handy hint - wrap the end of your ribbon with a bit of sticky tape to make it easier to thread and stop it fraying).

The ribbon embellishment was made by cutting slots in the backgrond and threading through more ribbon and decorating with a button.

Finally I decorated a couple of the squares with some brads. All of the brads and ribbons came from the same PS kit so they match the papers perfectly.

Lists on LO's!

I made a list the other day when I was mucking about with DH of reasons why I loved him! Some were heartfelt, some funny and a couple just plain stupid, but they were worthy of a LO and here it is!

I used a real mixture of bits from the webshop and I had great fun co-ordinating them all.
The background card is from the Autumn Leaves - Manhattan collection, it is the reverse side of Excelsior which was my favourite paper out of the whole range. I matted the photo onto MM 5th Avenue paper - Elizabeth Berry and cut out the heart shape from it as well. I also used a die-cut from the 5th Avenue Die Cuts - Elizabeth in the bottom corner.
I used Die Cut Chipboard Shapes - Alphabets #3 for my title, I inked the letters in red, painted the surrounds in white and inked the edges of the surrounds in black. The letter "I" i covered in a bit of the Excelsior paper and filled in with more white paint.
I added a Tim Holtz Adage Ticket to the heart and fixed a Dahlia Box Blend centre flower gem to the bottom corner with a brad. I typed out all my reasons in different fonts with borders and stuck them randomly over the page.
I haven't shown him this page yet, I don't want him to get a big-head! LOL!

Getting Naked!!

Sorry guys, no rude pics of gorgeous bodies, just "My Boy" shedding his skin, or as I call it "Getting Naked"!!! LOL!
For this page I another of the BARGAIN MAMBI papers (12p a sheet!!) this particular paper is Urban Couture: Blue Paisley and it was perfect for these photos of my boy! I also did a spot of recycling and completely wrecked the pizza box they came in! I peeled the top layer of card off to reveal the corrugated bit in the middle. I postioned my photos in the middle of two strips and added Die Cut Chipboard Shapes - Alphabets #2, which I painted with Acrylic Paint.
Finally I used brads to fix on the metal stars which I believe came from a HOTP PS kit.

A L/O with an owl !!!

I have made a L/O using an owl i made just cutting out shapes from PP using lucky dip pack.

The tree was hand drawn and cut same as the owl & the title.

To make the owl i folded a piece of paper longways . Drew a basic owl shape (like 1/2 snowman shape) added an ear then cut out & unfold. The mask was the same this time drawing a bean shape ! Drew round my glossy accents bottle for the eyes a triangle for the beak and some feet and pupils...simple !

Hope you like xxx

MAMBI 12p a sheet?? SERIOUSLY!!!

Seriously Guys, this is worth checking out!

The whole range of MAMBI papers are only 12p or 13p a sheet over in the webshop. If you haven't used it before it's a good quality paper, very sturdy and it has a nice glossy finish to it!
Anyway, needless to say I have been using it and I have thoroughly enjoyed my self in the process!

For once I didn't base the LO around the photos, I knew what I wanted to do with the paper but I didn't choose the pictures until the very end. I drew a rough sketch and worked all my sizes and which papers I wanted to use from the range. I used Urban Couture: Blue Paisley, Urban Couture: Denim Cross, Urban Couture: Distressed Grid in Pink and Urban Couture: Blue Rhinestones. I cut them all to the size I wanted and lined them all up onto a piece of Bazzill 12x12 Loose Textured Cardstock. I cropped and printed my pictures and title to size and added them on.
I embellished the page with the star shapes from the Die Cut Chipboard Shapes - Decorative Washers, which I painted silver and fixed into place using eyelets, I also added a larger star from the Die Cut Chipboard Shapes - Assorted Stars which I also painted and fixed in the same way.

Holiday Photos

I am finally getting around to scrapping some of my holiday photos, it's only taken me a couple of months! For this one everything I used came from the March 07 Personal Shoppers Kit. I love the papers in this kit, they are so summery.

The frame was one of the projects on the ideas booklet that comes with the kit. It uses a slide mount that came in the kit which is covered in paper and then matted on more paper before being fastened to the page with ribbons and brads. If you want to try something similar there are slide mounts available here.

I finished it off with a title cut from some plain brown cardstock in the kit.

ICELOLLY WEATHER ????

Here ive created a L/O to celebrate the few days its sunny enough to eat a ice lolly in the garden (not aug) This L/O was made using papers fro my Sept 06 Personal shopper kit and it has tons of papers , embellishments in to use for many more projects and only £9.50 !!!!

I used my own sharpie pen and stamps and ink to add journalling but there are plenty of ink pads HERE & stamps HERE .

The title was drawn in pencil & cut by hand and stuck onto a ice lolly shaped piece of Patterned paper. Some of the flowers were picked out by adding doodling with orange pen and other flowers were given lift by adding paper embellishments cut out and foam pads added to give them a bit of 3D.

Hope you like and it brightens up your day a little more :D

A CJ entry!

This is a DLO for a CJ I am currently hosting on another forum, for this page I had to work from a sketch from the Pencillines blog. So thanks for that! :)
The theme was "Gardens" so I chose to illustrate the changes that have taken place in mine over the past 4 years!
I used papers from a HOTP PS kit that I had left-over from a couple of months back (these kits really do last and they are only £9.50 over in the webshop)!!! This particular kit was April '07.
I added blossoms from one of the Dahlia Box Blend sets, and fixed them all to the page using brads.
I used Die Cut Chipboard Shapes - Alphabets for my title which I coloured using pens and finished the page off with a strip of brown ric rac.

Don't forget to check out this months challenge where you could win a fab scrapping kit and to be our September Guest Design Team Member!!

Autumn Leaves

I was fishing through some photos the other day and found this picture of my mum that I digitally restored for my dad and had to scrap it! My mum died when I was a baby so I have no memories of her which posed the quesion "Am I Like You?"

I used the Autumn Leaves - Manhattan collection purely because it seemed to go well with the picture, plus it a lovely range of papers! I used Tiffanys as the base cardstock, Pied A Terre as the photo matt and Carlyle as the pull-out journalling card. I also used a piece of the Making Memories 5th Avenue Cardstock - Sophia Geo Floral and cut out some of the little squares to add definition around the photo plus it matches her dress brilliantly!
I added some die-cut alphabets for my title which I simply coloured in with a co-ordinating felt-tip and a large chipboard die-cut daisy.
I added some Animal Crackers - Chenille Ric Rac as a stem for my daisy and as the pull-tag for my journalling card. And finally to finish it off I outlined everything with a black fine-liner pen!

Thank you card

Today I've been playing with my personal shopper kit again. I still find it amazing how much stuff there is in the kit, I still have lots more still to use. I made this card using the ideas sheet that comes with the kit, it is folded in a really unusual way and I love the colours of the different papers layered together. Everything I used cam from the March kit including the brads, ribbon and even the card blank.

Don't forget to enter this months challenge for the chance to win a kit and a guest DT spot!

Another Altered box from the Design team.

I have made an Altered box and album for my Sister in law & brothers FIRST wedding anniversary pressie . Well its paper so very apt .
I have covered the book and box in these fabby papers Manhatten by Autumn Leaves available HERE http://www.croptilyoudrop.co.uk/webshop/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=46
Ive added a few little embellishments of my own but you can buy Flowers HERE .
http://www.croptilyoudrop.co.uk/webshop/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2

HERES the blank book in a box its very sturdy and well made and a great size for adding photos. http://www.croptilyoudrop.co.uk/webshop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3_37&products_id=1382
its available in Kraft (what I used) or white .
hope you like . I’m actually going to give my SIL the book blank so she can add photos in herself as ive already made her an album when she got married x

The Penultimate One!!!

Day #39 of my 40-Days birthday event ... & the very last round of Guv's Celebrity Squares today.

As you can see ... my baby Auryn, #8, AKA DS4 was holding the prize for the last round ... I announced the winner on my blog yesterday, Stampinc. Now the boy is a li'l obsessed with stickers ... so there's a whole bunch of them on way to Cathy in the USA (TN if that means anything to you ... my American Geography is only marginally worse than my UK knowledge! LOL)
As we are not getting the thousands of correct entries that I'd hoped for each time ... this round is again open to everybody! Get your guesses in by midnight on August 14th for our final draw of this particular event! Good luck to you all ... & thanks sooooo much for joining in my birthday bash ... I hope that you will all become regular visitors and maybe join in with some of our other events in the future.

In case you need a reminder of who we all are: #1 Alix; #3 Guv (that's me!); #4 Elliemook; #6 Sean (DS1); #7 Phoenix; #9 Jay

Introducing August's Guest Designer ...

Zoe Stupples

We are very pleased to announce the first of our new monthly GDT spots and wanted to start off with a li'l getting to know you post. Here's what Zoe had to say:

I live with my partner of nearly 5 years Craig and my two beautiful children Ryan who has just turned 3, and Abigail my little 7 month old princess. I graduated from university last year and intend to complete a PGCE to make me a fully qualified teacher in the not so distant future but at the moment, I have the pleasure of spending all my time with my beautiful children!!

I have always been crafty since I was a little girl, I loved drawing and sticking from a very early age – instead of dolls I would get glue sticks for my birthday!! At school I took up art and did an A-level in Graphic Design. It wasn’t until I was introduced to my partners mum that I realised that this wonderful world of papercrafting existed!!. It took me a while to actually take the plunge and start doing it myself though!! I have been crafting on and off for a few years now, but with the stress of trying to complete a full time university course whilst looking after the children I rarely got to craft at all. I really got back into crafting last summer when I graduated from university, I found that it helped to keep me busy when my course finished and I have never looked back since then!!

At the moment I would have to say that Cardmaking is most definitely my favourite craft. – Mainly because I haven’t started Scrapbooking yet!! I am really starting to enjoy adding lots of layers and doodles onto my cards now though so I think that I am just about ready to venture into the world of the scrapbook!! And with my two beautiful children I need to start sooner rather than later to be able to keep up with the photos!!

I started out cardmaking when my Ryan was born. With Craig’s mum being a fantastic crafter I really wanted to make her a special birth announcement card, then it just moved on from there.

We'll be hearing more about Zoe later in the month, so do keep coming back!

We sent Zoe our first ever monthly embellishment kit, a whole range of We R Memory Keepers Promenade papers and some other bits n pieces - we can't wait to see what she will create for us!

And if you'd like the chance at a Guest Design spot on this very blog ... check out this month's challenge here: the closing date is midnight BST, August 31st & we open a poll so that our visitors can choose their favourite!

Today's 40 Day event (the penultimate one!) coming very soon!!!

Grandma gift book

Loads of photos today because I've been working on a mini book. I used one of the cloud9 designs 6x6 board books, they make a fab gift as they come in their own little box. I covered both the book and the box in the gorgeous sunrise smoothie papers. I embelished the project with lots of american crafts ribbons (from the lucky dip in cyan and coral colour options) and cosmo cricket rub ons. I didn't think the cord handle of the box matched my papers too well so I removed it (saved it for something else!) and replaced it with a piece of scrummy making memories noteworthy trim (melon ribbed velvet). So what do you think?

Don't forget to enter this months challenge to win a guest DT spot for october!!

Monthly Challenge

Its time again for the monthly challenge, where did July go? For August, because I love getting messy, I'm challenging you to use paint in your crafting. Paint a background for your layout, card or atc, paint journalling strips on a photo, use paint to alter your embelishments. I'd love to see the ideas you all come up with.

For the base of my layout I used a sheet of textured cardstock from the March 07 Personal Shopper kit. I then used a sheet of paper from the lucky dip pack and hand cut scallops to make a frame. I edged the scallops with acrylic paint to make them stand out from the background.
I then marked the position of my photo and painted a mat for it with more acrylic paint. I also braved painting my title by hand too.
I created a flower embelishment from some American Crafts ribbon by sewing along one side and drawing the thread tight to create a kind of rosette.

You have until the end of the month to enter and the prize is a fab kit of yummy stuff from the shop and a guest design team spot for October ... we work months ahead here you know! LOL.

Today ive made a card.

One of the teams last challenges was to recycle and i thought i would make this card today .

the chipboard bird can be purchased here .... and the squares of paper have been punched out of scraps ive used in other L/Os ive done. The paper was from paper pack Here.... tim holtz tickets are here...

hope you like xxxx

oh one last thing visit my blog for a chance to win some lengths of ribbon in the Guvs 40th bithday challenge more details of how you can win even more prizes are Here... too xxx