three more

So here are three more of my favourites from 2008.

The first one I did for The Scrapbook Magazine as part of my article on White Space. I love the paper-again 3ndypapir from Norway. I love the limited colour palette. I love the different textures: lace, transparency, and the embossed stamp from Autumn Leaves. But most of all I love the photos of Emily!



In the second layout I love the colours and the bunting. The bunting is made from ribbon. I love the wee pictures and the text from a children's book, and I love that red hibiscous tape. I love how a splash of red gives everything a lift!



And finally this Layout of Paris. I love the graphic design of this one. I love the focal photo and the way the eye is drawn around the page by the striped paper. It is Scenic Route paper.


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I said they would be different from yesterday's vintage collection!

So, It's New Years eve, and I'm on taxi duty! I'll be hanging around here waiting for Jack to call for a ride home from his friend's house.
We have done our top ten highlights from 2008. We always sit at teatime and each go through our highlights for the year. Jack's almost all centre around football, Malcolm's around hillwalking and Emily and mine around places we've been.

So all that's left of 2008 is for me to wish all my family and friends a very happy 2009!

Three more...

of my favourite 10 layouts of 2008. The idea for the first layout came when I read the quote at Storypeople.com. This is only half the quote, but it really sums up the huge emotions that come with having a baby. (In reality I have spent the last 18 years rearranging my mind to accomodate my kids!) The photo is poor quality-but I don't have many photos from when the kids were little (pre digital!). I love the wee journalling card tucked into the pocket-It is part of a writing set I bought at a flea market! The cardstock is brown, not black in reality, and so the layout is softer than it appears here.



Both the next two layouts use papers from a Norwegian company 3ndypapirs, and I love them. Again, the photos are poor, so I scanned them and fiddled around a bit. The photo of Jack in my hat is just so cute!

And this photo of Emily is cute too! What is it about little kids and hats? They always look so adorable!

What is interesting about these layouts is that they are all brown based. Guess I have a thing for brown.But then again, tomorrow's layouts are totally different. I do hope you will check back to see.

A Year in Review part 2

So here are my next favourite layouts of 2008.
Remember to click on the pictures to see details.

As you can see these are very different from the three I posted earlier. I do like to try lots of different styles, depending on the photos, and these photos deserved a soft, vintage feel. The first one is about the flea market we visited in France. There are lots of flea market finds used as embellishments. I also embossed bits and pieces to age them, eg the key.



I love the photo of Emily in the next layout. There are lots of techniques in this layout too-crackle paint, embossing, stamping and paper napkins. I LOVE using paper napkins-love the translucency! This is such a pretty, tactile layout in real life!



I was going to upload another tonight but I can't locate a photo of it just now, so I'll leave it until tomorrow!

End of Year Review

So this is the time of the year when all the reviews the events of the past 12 months start to appear on TV, so I thought I would review my layouts from the past 12 months, and over the next few nights, post my 10 favourites. You can click on the images to have a closer look.

This is my most favourite of all! There are a lot of techniques on this LO-collage, decollage, embossing, image transfers, and most of the images in the background are my own artwork, so I think this is a truly unique layout-and it works well in portraying the urban feel that I was after!



This one of Jack is simple-just a few paint techniques and rubons-and a few bits of chocolate wrappers stapled on for good measure. And I Love the quote-it comes from Storypeople.



And finally tonight, this one of Emily in York. I love the way the papers pick up the colours in the photo, I love the crow rubon-I think it suits the medieval pillars of the church, and I love the cluster of embellishments at the bottom.


Tomorrow I will choose some more of my favorites-the ones I have in mind are totally different to these!
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Christmas

Hello family and friends...

Here are some Christmas photos.

First Emily decorating the gingerbread house. For some years now we have bought one of these-flatpacked of course-from IKEA. I usually help Emily with the decorating but this year left her to do it-after I had assembled it. ( I always assemble all the flat packs in out house!) Emily made the icing too runny and all her smarties kept sliding off the roof. She got a bit bored after some time and left it half finished. I came along later to finish it, but forgot to take a final photo!


On Christmas day this year we had out meal in the evening. This is so much better because it meant we could go out in the daytime. After we had opened some presents Emily and nanny went to visit Uncle Jackie in his nursing home, while I took Jack for a driving lesson. The roads were quiet so it was a good chance for him to practise on real roads. It was still quite nerve wracking though! After lunch we all went for a drive to Yellowcraigs beach and had a lovely walk.

Emily, Jack and Malcolm had fun on the climbing frame-you are never too old for a play park!

We came home and I started the cooking. We had a traditional turkey dinner, but this year we had pavlova instead of Christmas pudding. It was a joint Emily/Pam effort- and it was delicious!

and finally-I played around with photographing our Christmas tree!

I scrapped..

Well, this is a layout with a story-the story of my first afternoon in school, a memory that has stayed with me forever. One day I will scrap the story of my first morning in school. That memory has stayed with me forever too!
I can't remember the paper I used, but it is a lovely script and number paper, well suited to a school layout.
Click on the image if you want a large view.



The poppies are table napkins. I love how the napkins are translucent and allow the patterned paper to show through. You get the complexity of layers without the bulk.



The photo is matted on some torn graph paper, again fitting for a school layout, and also adding some texture. I collaged on some vintage school images-after all, this story took place a long time ago! More texture is added with the mesh, lace and pearls.




And finally, you may have noticed I have added a blog followers widget at the top right hand side of my blog. If you visit regularly you may want to become subscribe. Just click on the link, and then you'll be notified when I update. That way you don't waste your time visiting if I haven't updated!

My holiday...

...has started and I'm so tired. I'm sitting by the fire, TV on, websurfing on my laptop. I should go and do something creative-or at the very least take the washing out of the machine-but I just can't be bothered!!!

So I'll just upload a LO I did for Scrapbook Sisters using fabulous papers from Graphic 45. I did a couple of layouts and a cute mini book using this line. The minibook is going to be taught at Scrapbook Sisters in January. I'll upload pictures of it after that. Anyway, this paper has a vintage feel, but I wanted to try to use it in a modern way on this layout. It is my very handsome boy! Oh dear-just realized I don't have a picture of this LO so if you want to see it you'll need to go to Scrapbook Sisters blog and scroll down to December 10th entry.

Two things

The prompt this week at Mixed Media Mondays was GOLD. So I made a background of copper and gold acrylic paint, added a gel medium transfer of the girl,stamped and embossed the clocks and then masked and stamped the Auld Lang Syne stamp on top. Then I added some thick gold acrylic paint to the edges and heated with my embossing gun until it blistered. Don't you just love the texture that creates? I didn't get a very good impression with the Auld Lang Syne stamp though. I think maybe I should have masked the space for the clocks, then stamped the song, then the embossed clocks last. I wonder if that would have made a clearer impression?


Then Emily asked for yet another birthday card. I wanted to use stamps again as I find stamps to be quite challenging for some reason. The cupcakes stamp came free with a magazine, if I remember correctly. It is embossed with black then painted with twinkling H2Os. Anyway, here's the card. As I said in my earlier post, cards really aren't my thing, and this one took a lot longer than it should have,


The scrapbook Magazine is out I believe so I need to go and find myself a copy. I shoud have another article in this month. This one is about using bubble wrap.

Christmas is coming...

..and the tree is up. Emily started it while I was out yesterday, and finished it last night. It really does look very pretty!


These little wooden ornaments were bought in Rome when Jack was a baby, way back in 1991.

This painted glass baubles is my favourite:

And here is the fairy on the top of the tree. I can't remember where we got her, but she's been with us a long time too.

cards

Emily wanted some cards for friends so I made these:

boy's card.



girl's card.



I'm not sure why I find cards so difficult- I'm not really motivated to make them, maybe because they invariably get thrown out. I know that stops me from using my best stash!!
here's the blog award that Emma sent. If you want some scrapping inspiration make sure you go over to Emma's blog-that girl has talent to burn.

So, now I have to pass the award on and among all the talenet out there here are just a few:

Steph, Gloria, Christiane,Jen

All of those links will take you to even more scrappy inspiration!

mother and daughter day out:

Emily and I had a great day yesterday. First we did some christmas shopping at Cameron Toll, then we went into the city centre. We had lunch in Howie's-Emily had yummy banoffee pie for dessert-I didn't have any desert because I was full after my braised beef meal.



After lunch we wandered through the fun fair:


to the German market-so many pretty things:


Emily tried on some german felt hats:




We went for a look in Cath Kidson:

and LOVED this inspiration board in the shop:

We came home and did the crowabout collage challenge, Mine:

and Emily's-this is the first time she has ever done anything like this-and I think she's done well. She kept asking-'am I allowed to-....' and found it hard to get her head around the notion that's there is no right and wrong, it's just about having fun, problem solving and thinking!!

It was a pleasure to spend time together today-no teenage moods, just a lovely, happy, fun girl!

I've been playing along with Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas -which is a bit of a problem because I don't have a lot of the kit required for all the different techniques, but I try to improvise! Anyway, tonight I combined Tim with this weeks Mixed Media Monday prompt, which is HOME. I've got a way to go with this mixed media business, and with stamping in particular, but I enjoy having a go!

so what a great weekend I've had!!

It's all in the details

Here is a closeup collage of the LO I did for The CreaTive tyPe. Unfortunately on the blog the layout looks very flat and dull. Hopefully here you can get a better idea of the texture and sparkle of the page in real life. I have used some paint effects-stencilling through sequin waste with acrylic paint, spritzing on some mica powders, adding a little silver leaf here and there, and embossing the title with UTTE to give an icy effect. You can click on the image for a larger view.

Today I came across the CUTTLEBUG CHALLENGE blog. It's just what I need because my cuttlebug never gets the workout it deserves. I only use it to cut titles. Even though I own some embossing folders I have never used them, and the challenges on the blog will hopefully inspire me to get more use from this piece of kit.

The CreaTive Type

Prompt #8 is up here. Why not play along for a chance to win this fabulous prize: This gorgeous kit comes from Sweet Spuds. I fancy that kit myself-I love the colours!

blog awards

I have been given 2 blog awards recently-this one is from Scrapbook Sisters:

This award states that:This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY- nearness in space, time and relationships.These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends, they are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.

I am passing this award on to:
The Inspirational Blog: because it's-well inspirational!

Jakey: because I love her style.

Paula: because her blog is so full of variety

Angela: cause I love her Twiddley bits-you really need to take a look at her blog to understand!!

I can't believe how long all those links took! Think I'll do the other award another day!