Monday, January 30, 2012

Shimelle's Starting Point Challenge

I should probably upload my Starting Point Challenge for Shimelle before I forget and she posts a new one...

The light wasn't great, I forgot again to take my pictures in the morning, so you'll just have to imagine this layout as bright and fresh as it is :)

Here's a link to Shimelle's post

And here is my effort -


This layout has the longest title yet for a page of mine. It is titled - "(If you're not on the list, you're not) Getting In!". This old photo of the boys always makes me think they look like a pair of bouncers :) I had more fun with my craft robo cutting out the clipboard and rope barrier. And the paper I used (no idea of the name) is some of the last that hubby brought back from the US for me a couple of years ago. If I finish it all, maybe I'll be allowed buy more! Hurray!

Crafty Queens Book

Ok, I'm going to keep this short and sweet... I am suffering from 'Scrappers Neck'. This newly named, but old familiar complaint, is an unwelcome result of some power scrapping yesterday. I attended the Crafty Queens monthly workshop where we produced the most amazing book. Eve is truly talented!

I have mine mostly covered - I kept going once I got home... so that was probably 12 hours with the knife, glue and paper - hence the very sore neck, from crafting too much! But here is the result (so far..)





Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The New Storage Has Arrived

Hurrah, the new storage has arrived.

A few brilliant Cropper Hopper paper holders, and 12x12 stackable trays. I've been busy organising my paper to go into the cropper hoppers - it's a lot of work, but I'm enjoying it. Sad, I know!



It's wrong to get this excited about moulded plastic! But I am hopeful that all this storage, which is specifically meant for scrapbooking supplies, will help me keep organised.

It cost a good bit to have them shipped over from the UK, but search as I might i just couldn't find anyone here doing them.

It does drive me a little mad that we Irish scrappers have to buy stuff from the US and UK... if only scrapbooking was popular here :(

All that said, I did still do it again today - ordered more from the UK! I couldn't help myself. Papermaze.co.uk are having a 65% sale. They had a fire so they need to get rid of the fire damaged stuff. So I ordered one of every Thicker that they have. And if they smell a little smokey, it'll just add an extra sensory dimension to my layouts :)

The downside though of course is the shipping. They charge tonssssssss. But, what with the sale being so good I'm still saving over 50% on the cost of buying the Thickers here. And I love Thickers. Obsessed with them!

I'm sure I'll post a pic when they arrive :)

It's all scrappy Go, Go, Go!



It really is Scrapbook crazy around here at the moment. Charlie is been driven crazy by my going on and on and on about all things scrapbooking. He's probably the only nine year old in Ireland who could tell you what a Thicker is. Or who Shimelle Laine is. But he's very good. He listens and tries his best not to look utterly bored :)

So, my latest layout was created at Annamarie crop in Whitehall last Thursday. There was a smallish turn out, but I have to say, it was lovely all the same. I wouldn't normally go when it's just a crop, rather than a workshop, but I was pleasantly surprised and will definitely go when it's just a crop again.

Here is the layout I created.





I was delighted with the violins and notes. I got out my CraftRobo which I hadn't used in ages. I always felt that I wasn't getting the most out of it and I was proved right when I stumbled across a feature which pretty much lets me grab any image I want from the web and turn it into an image I can cut out! Brilliant! Hence the violins and notes.


Once I cut out the violins I inked them and then embossed them using my new Papermania 'Urban Stamps'. And the same with the music notes. I am completely delighted with the result!





But my favourite bit of all perhaps are the blue butterflies. I have been searching and searching for the perfect butterfly punch and couldn't find it anywhere. I finally found what I was looking for - I was very fussy, no cut outs, no frilly bits, just a plain simple butterfly! - but the stamp I found was by a very well known and popular scrapbook product producer. Quite expensive. 
But with my new skill with the Craft Robo, I was able to create my own! And I was able to resize the image and make big ones! And medium ones! The world is my oyster :)



Can't wait to get more cutting done :)

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

My First Crop

Went to my first proper crop on Saturday and I had a wonderful time. Five hours passed and I barely noticed. And I only managed to get two layouts done. I thought I'd be coming home with five or six! Obviously too much chatting and eating of cake. And it was nice to see that not just scrapbooking, but card making and knitting and all sorts of crafts were going on all round me.

But now I want a wheelie craft tote! There were so many nice ones all round me... but Christmas is past and my birthday isn't for ages :(

That said, it is really annoying living in Ireland where no one has heard of Scrapbooking. The choice of totes isn't great and unlike other craft supplies, would just be too expensive to ship in from the UK or US. I just know I'm going to end up buying myself one of those old lady shopping trolleys to see me over until I figure out a plan...

Anyway, here are the layouts I did at the crop. Not great pictures of them, but if I don't upload them now I'll never get round to it.


This is a pic just before it was finished, and I wish I'd left it like this. I added a little more and wasn't as happy, but sure isn't that always the way with scrapping (or is that just me??)


                   




Happier with this one, but the photo doesn't do it justice. If I have a minute tomorrow I might change it. (and I guess alter this text!)

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Busy, Busy!

Hubby is watching 'The Fast and the Furious 5' next to me here. Yes, 5. At times like these, one needs to scrap.

Or, more specifically in this case, do my scrapping admin.


I'm just awful at keeping on top of the less fun aspects of scrapping. The tidying. The checking of dates for my layouts. It's a bit of a trudge. And throw into the mix that I've finally got my new American Crafts D ring binders, with extra refills, and I have to reorganise every single layout from every single album I have! Bah. And all the new layouts that had been piling up waiting for the new albums. It's a lot of work.


Don't get me wrong, I love a bit of organising. But having to sort through the hundreds of layouts I've made since I started scrapping about four years ago is daunting. 
Some, but not all of my layouts and some albums! Sorted into years, but not into the new albums yet.
 
And then of course, as I mention in the previous post, I have a tendency to not write my journaling until the page goes into the album. This means I have about one hundred layouts to journal. I suspect I'll get very good at the snappy one liners...





But it is all essential to the process. There is no point recording your family history if no one could make head nor tail of it.

There is more though... I'm never one to make things easy. 
My 160 photos arrived from Snapfish! And of course I had decided to revamp my photo storage as well just before I ordered the new photos, so my head is even more wreaked!! Why do these all at the same time?? Well, the answer is simple really, I've been doing all these because my scrapping room/albums/supplies had gotten a little out of control and when they're out of control, I can't scrap. And that's bad :(

Unfortunately there was a problem with a good lot of the photos. They were way over saturated. Everyone looked like they had sunburn. Full marks to Snapfish and they got back to me within the hour of my email complaint and restocked my account with free credits. I spent some time today re uploading the pictures and sending them off again. Fingers crossed they'll come back good this time.

And maybe by the time they arrive I'll be far enough along with my admin that I can do some scrapping with them :)


Thursday, January 12, 2012

Starting and Finishing

So today's post is a story of Starting Points and finishing posts.

Having found a smidge of energy to do a bit of scrapping I decided to do Shimelle's starting point challenge. It can be found HERE. The idea is she gives you the basic starting point of a page and then you run from there, like a sketch, but with a bit more of the work done :)

Here is what I produced -


The title of the page is 'Her Lonesome Diana Pose'. Her pose reminded me of that famous picture of Princess Diana outside the Taj Mahal (here's a link to it for anyone too young to remember it!) and seeing as my picture was taken at The Giant's Causeway, another great wonder of the world, I felt it was fitting :) I'm also delighted that I did my journaling! I usually leave the journaling until I'm filing the page, by which time I don't always remember all the details. I don't know why I do this because journaling is for me one of the most important parts of scrapbooking. I just love the chronicling of my family history. The little stories, the anecdotes, all that would be forgotten if not put down on paper. Maybe I'll make 2012 the year where I make more of an effort to do the journaling at the same time.

Also, I had a whale of a time playing with a Cuttlebug last night, oh, the joy of embossing! I may have to start saving my pennies... (thanks Orlaith :)

And so to finishing...

Well, I was on a roll after finishing the starting point layout, so I reckoned it was a good idea to finish that layout of baby Lily that I put up last post.

So, here it is -

I went with a title 'You call this summer?!' what with last years summer barely deserving to be called that! And poor Lily, born to horrible snow and then not even a decent first summer. Maybe this year.

Anyway, I am off to my first crop on Saturday with the Crop Tarts in Donnycarney - great name, lol :) Feeling a little shy, but am sure it'll be lots of fun. Sure, it's a day just devoted to scrapping, how could it not be fun?

And I imagine there will be a lot of layouts to be posted here in the near future - due to a really good offer with Snapfish.ie, I was able to order 160 pictures for only 7.70euro (delivery included - in fact, 5euro of that was delivery!) Can't wait for them to arrive. But hopefully unlike last time I ordered a load of photos (a few years ago) I won't get completely sick of them by the time they are all done. Watch this space :)





Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Current layout - unfinished!


I was probably getting a little sick of Christmas related crafting when I started this layout as it is a tad unseasonal... the pictures were taken last 'summer'. The temperature was probably about the same though... Anyway, it isn't finished as the hecticness of this time of year overtook me. I fear though that if I don't get some help, it might remain unfinished. Y'see, I loved the pictures when I took them (well, I still do love them) but I printed out way too many of them. So, I have already scrapped at least two layouts from the series, and there wasn't really all that much going on as it was - baba was just looking super cute :) I've used up all my inspiration when it comes to titles, but I just hate to leave a page nameless... don't get me started on what I might journal about...


Here is a finished one of herself. Though it took somewhat less time to get there! The layout was, yet again, one from a TheScrapbookStore workshop, but it had remained pictureless until recently. When I saw this pic of the little missus, I knew it was perfect :)

Creative Endeavours



I don't need much excuse to bake, so I decided this year to bake fresh gingerbread cookies for the children's teachers, as Christmas gifts. As a friend said to me - 'They're a couple of quid in the shop!' She was quite right, but I really really wanted the teachers to know what a wonderful domestic goddess I am :) Unfortunately, no batch of cookies tasted quite as delicious as the first, test batch, that I did. I guess I'll have to wait until next year to show off at school!

Here are that first yummy batch -


I completely forgot to take a pic of the finished jars of cookies, adorned with Christmasy ribbons and tags. It's a shame, because even if they ended up not tasting that great, that at least looked well :)

Also on the agenda were some pressies. I bought a pack of 2012 little calendary thingys (do they have a name??) and I didn't realise that there were loads of them! So, everyone's been getting calendars for Christmas. These two I did as cards, killing two birds with one stone :)








Christmas Projects

At Decembers workshop with TheScrapbookStore, very talented designer Michelle Le Grue (here's her excellent blog) did a demonstration on how to create a very pretty string of Christmas Lanterns. Here it is, showcased on the Making Memories blog (here).

Normally, as much as I like a crafty project like this, I never seemed to find the time to actually do them. But low and behold, I did this time and was stupidly proud of my effort!

I've posted a few pics of my lanterns here - the pics aren't great, but in the flesh, I was very happy with the result.


Monday, January 2, 2012

It's been a while!

I haven't been blogging in a while - life has been too hectic, but I have been crafting!


A few layouts - Xmas themed. Sadly nothing original from myself, just some excellent layouts from TheScrapbookStore.ie workshops :)





Three layouts were done on the night of the Christmas workshop and in one fell swoop I got all of Christmas 2010 done. There weren't many pictures taken last year as I'd just come out of hospital having had a baba, so it did make scrapping the season a lot easier!
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