Stuck?! Sketch challenge

Good morning (just)

Today is my birthday, so I thought I'd work on a LO about me for a change. 

This photo was taken when I was a little 'worse for wear' back in July 2010 when myself and my colleagues won three awards for being the best estate agent in West Kent! We had a WONDERFUL night and the champagne flowed all evening .. and I have to say ... probably one of the worst hangovers I'd ever had in my entire life! Never again! (Yeah right!)

Anyway, over on UKS we were, this week, challenged to do a LO about yourself.. and as I am known to be (sometimes) a bit strict (my excuse is as a manager I have to be!) I decided to do a LO about my personality. 

Now that's hard when taking about yourself.. so here it is anyway.

I had been wanting to get 'stuck in' with the latest sketch over on the Stuck?! Blogspot  so I used this as the basis of my LO. I used MME Record it papers and added my own flowers and bling for the finishing touches. 

I do hope you like! 

Thanks for looking and do follow me if you'd like. 

SIPIDI.. See It Pin It, Do It!

What? Yes that's right.. SIPIDI! 

My UKS friend, Fiona, has come up with an interesting scenario over on her blog, Staring at the Sea. She has a theory.. we all 'pin' things and rarely use them.. so this is her challenge! Use them! Simple really!  Last month I blogged a LO using SIPIDI.. and others blogged recipes, cards, quilting and a myriad of other things. 

So here is mine.. this month I am using organisation and in particular Thickers organisation... here is the link to the inspiration... and here is my interpretation. 

It took me quite a while to find a magazine file wide enough...but eventually I tracked one down in Paperchase.. costing me just £7... and as you can see, I had to have two.. which both fit perfectly side by side in my Ikea Expedit shelving unit. They actually have several different styles but I quite liked this funky designed one.

Above it you will see another Ikea purchase...a bamboo magazine holder...(full of scrap-booking sketches).. and a bamboo document holder..which I have all my smaller scraps of plain card stock in.

If you want to see more of my newly organised craft room, please become a follower and watch this space as I will soon be blogging the entire thing, including my sticker storage solutions, scrap patterned paper storage ideas, embellishment storage and a host of other things. 

I look forward to seeing you soon. Do let me now what you think.. it will make my day!  

CKCB Blog hop

Well here we are again.. you should have found your way here via Margies blog and I am sure you would have been very impressed by her creation. 

Now.. of course, it's my turn.. and as Guest Designer for the month of March I thought I would do a mammoth blog with three layouts.. yes that's right. Three! Now.. I blame the designers of the blog for this. The trouble is they set some AWESOME challenges this month.. and as soon as I tried the watercolour challenge at the beginning of the month.. I could not stop making LO's with watercolour elements! AND I have even dabbled with oil pastels that have been lurking in my drawer for years untouched! I have already blogged two watercolour LO's, one from inspiration gleaned from Jennifer Graces blogspot,  and here is the first of my next three LO's. saved especially for this post.  

First I took an off-cut of glossy photo paper and started painting it in all the colours of the rainbow after previously soaking the paper with water. Because the paper was glossy the paint flowed randomly over it and I allowed it to settle after first dabbing a lot of the excess off.. and this was the result. 

I then added it to this LO which was based on the photo that I took while in St Lucia celebrating my 50th birthday. Unbelievably, while we were driving to a neighbouring Sandals hotel for dinner, this beautiful double rainbow appeared over Castries Harbour ... (I like to think especially for me on my birthday) lol.


As far as the watercolour painting was concerned I was totally out of my comfort zone... but now I've tried it I'm hooked! To finish it off I then added punched co-ordinating butterflies and some other colourful elements and used rub ons for the title. I tucked a tiny tag in along the top with the details of the event.  For the basis of the LO I used a sketch from Creative Scrappers Blogspot encouraging me to use a large photo for once. 

For my next LO.. I 'splattered' the paint onto some paper and  also 'splodged' some colour onto another piece and finally I painted a rainbow of pale colours onto some more paper. I cut the rainbow paper into strips to add to the LO and then I die cut circles of the splodged and splattered painted paper. These elements became the basis of my LO featuring circles. 

The layout I came up with is one of my 'Mums bouquet' that my son gave me at his wedding last year. He gave the most amazing speech and credited me with turning him in to the kind of man his new wife would want to marry.. I was awash with tears as you can imagine! 

The banners were cut from the painted paper rainbow.  Here it is

The sketch for this LO came over from Susi Bees Crafty Mess Blog  where she used a sketch that her house mate Sue had set as a challenge over on UKS. I used several circles and banners cut from the painted paper effects and added a pink bling title and some more splodged paint behind the elements. 

In the end, although it is quite pretty, this LO didn't turn out as well as I would have liked and I really wanted to scrap the bouquet.. so ... I had another attempt!

The next one was also using my kit papers, but I was really into my 'arty phase' by now so I went for the oil pastels.. and I made the LO below.. which is a different photo of the same bouquet so you get the idea. My younger son, who was best man, helped me by carrying it out of the dining room and just as he did so, the photographer snapped this subtle shot.. I love this natural look of him in the background. As you can see I used some more of the splattered paint circles I had left over from making the LO above. 

I also used two corners I had made from some water colour painted circles that I  had stuck some doilies over. I then cut it into quarters to make interesting corners and added stamped bubbles on to the background. So here is LO no. 3

The observant among you will also notice that I included some washi tape on the right of the photo.. which had stars on it, so that was also an idea from the designers over on CKCB! As I said they really excelled themselves this month and gave me HUGE inspiration.

I am far happier with this LO and I managed to use up some of my hand made paper behind the photo which I used as a mat. For inspiration I used a sketch that was the March monthly challenge over on UKS too. 

Well that's the end of my mammoth bloghop.. but if you want to see more of my LO's featuring water colour and this kit, please do feel free to follow my blog and pop back from time to time. 

Next you're off to Lesleys blog where no doubt you'll be impressed with her creativity. Thanks for popping by and if you get lost along the way, please pop back to the CKCB blog where you will find the order again.

Take care all and do let me know you've visited! Thanks for having me as your guest designer...it was an honour to be allowed to play along with so many other artists!

Scrap 365 April Sketch challenge

Good morning all

Today I am loading my take on the Scrap 365 April Sketch challenge which was bought to my attention through the lovely Jennifer Grace Blogspot. As some of you may know our Jennifer is a UK scrapper who inspires many of us here in the UK.. myself included. 

Anyhoo.... I liked the look of this sketch and I decided to use my new found love of watercolour paint as the basis for my LO. 

I started with a simple three colour lemon, lime and beige wash behind the area that I was going to add my photo to and then started building from there. 

First I pulled out my March Counterfeit Kit. As the March Guest Designer for the CKCB I thought I'd use up some more of my kit. So, although I added the white and green cardstock, the other papers were from my kit..making it the 8th (?) LO I've made with it.

So here it is! The photo was taken as I was out walking my dogs last spring..and there in front of me, was this baby owl! Now, me being me, I had my DSLR camera with me, so I was able to get this close up of it, although I think if I'd got right up close it wouldn't have flown off.. it was a surreal moment to say the least! Wasn't I lucky to find it? 

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my LO and clicking through to have a look at the other blogs I follow..but please remember to come back again! 

Tomorrow I am pleased to say I will be joining in the CKCB blog hop where I will be sharing another THREE layouts! 

Do come back and tell me what you think.. I'm looking forward to seeing you all here then.  By for now, and thanks for stopping by! 

Cherish the Memories

Afternoon all

Using this months Counterfeit Kit again I made the layout below for the March week 3 sketch challenge over on UKS. 

These photos are very special to me because neither my Dad or my gorgeous niece are around any more. Sadly my Dad passed away in 1979, just 5 years after this photo was taken and my dear niece died when she was 28. Tragically she took her life while suffering from post natal depression. As a warning to all..never under estimate the effects of PND!

However, I have been wanting to scrap these pictures for a while, but I needed just the right inspiration, so I used Barbaras challenge to scrap 'Good Times' as the excuse I needed.

I used a sketch from Stuck?! Blogspot as my inspiration. 

I cut the title with my Slice, layered the papers and cut a die flourish and layered them on top of the laser cut doily tucked behind the photo mat. 

I then punched the butterflies from some painted paper with doilies stuck over them and added bling for their bodies. 

To finish it off I doodled with a silver pen and added a double heart embellishment, silk flower and some tiny sparkles. 

Thanks for popping by.... do let me know what you think!

WOYWW

Well… better late than never…

This week I have decided to show you my ‘overspill’ desk…  otherwise known as my breakfast table in my conservatory!

As I may have mentioned before, I am just starting to dabble in watercolours/ art journals. Now… anyone that knows me knows that I can’t draw or paint for toffee…but I’m giving it a go.. although I suspect it’ll be more abstract than anything.. and for now it’ll just be to add to my scrapbook pages.

But here is my table.. where I have moved to so I could get some natural daylight!  I have had to crop the photo quite a lot as I didn't want to share my LO's that I am working on yet... you'll have to pop back next week to see and check on my progress.

 

Have a great crafty time everyone!

 

WOYWW 249

Hello all

Today my work desk contains the tools and the mess that remains from my last LO.. posted previously... where I used paints, stamps and inks to create my LO... and this is the mess that I left behind including the blue beaker full if dirty painty water! It's been there two days! Oh the shame!

Whenever I don't clear my desk after using it.. it's always the time when I suddenly decide I 'need' to use my desk .... making it nigh on impossible to find a space to craft!

In this instance I suddenly remembered I had to make a card for a friend that is recovering from surgery... needs must.. so I pushed everything out of the way and made the card.. I was really too tired to tidy up first! 

Nevertheless.. the card is now made and is sitting in the envelope all ready to go off to the recipient. 

Thanks for stopping by.. and sorry about the mess! lol

Fifth LO using watercolour as a technique

Hi again.. two posts in one day! Can't be bad!

Today over on UKS the weekly challenge was to use a 'lifestyle change' for the subject of your LO.. amongst other choices... so I racked my brain and came up with this photo that was taken about 10 years ago when I lost over 2 stone (that's about 30lbs to any Americans reading this and about 14kg for any Australians! lol) . I was voted the class 'Miss Slinky' and won a lovely bouquet of flowers too. 

I used a pin from Pinterest for the initial idea for the LO and used yellow watercolour initially, then dripped raspberry pink splashes of watercolour and left it until it was almost dry.. then whilst still damp- I stamped black bubbles and swirls on the background and used a wet wipe to smear the paint and ink in a downward direction. I then doodled black lines and arrows and did some faux stitching on the photo mat. I then added the other paper from my CKCB kit and layered some journalling tags, added the title and added all the embellishments. 

I also used a drinking straw as per Angelas Blog  that gives instructions how to get those little black circles that I needed just to stretch my stamping out a little more.

It took me right out of my comfort zone as I don't normally do messy... (you should see my desk!) but I have to say I'm actually quite pleased with the end results... what do you think.. do let me know!

Fourth LO with my Great Expectations kit

Afternoon all...

Firstly may I say welcome to two new followers! What a privilege it is for me to know my blogging may be of interest to some people! 

Secondly...here is a new LO I've just made with my Great Expectations March kit in my capacity as Guest Designer over on the CKCB.

I used the inspiration from SJ Crafts March challenge whereby we were challenged to use their idea as a start for your LO... So I took one look at the photos and just knew exactly which photos I was going to use.

Two years ago, one sunny but blustery day some friends and I took a weekend away to Camber Sands, a beach about an hours drive from here. We stayed at a super little B&B and in the morning, after a hearty breakfast we went for a, somewhat chilly, walk along the beach to blow away the cobwebs and walk off some of that breakfast!

I started with the background paper from my kit and used the reverse side of the papers rather than the ones I had originally photographed... And I think they work rather well. I have tucked a tag behind the top right of the photograph to tell the story.

Thanks for looking and do remember to say you've popped by!

Have a good day!

Hey... I can make that!

Oh my word! Bloomin' blogger let me down! I'm so sorry I'm late.. I scheduled the post and it didn't load it when it should have... I'm so sorry! Anyway here is what you were missing! 

Morning all.. as you know I am the Guest Designer for the month of March over on the CKC Blog.. and what a pleasure it has been.. it has really given me the inspiration to scrap regularly and I am pleased to say the wonderful kit over at Cocoa Daisy made me look at my supplies in a different way! Here is the kit in question:

Normally, when putting my own kit together, I would go through my, somewhat large, collection of papers and find something that resembles the kit on show. 

However, in the case, I found that 'raspberry' jumped out at me as a colour I wanted to include in my kit 'Great Expectations' .. on closer inspection though, I found I didn't have anything that really jumped out at me that I wanted to include.. and so I decided to make some! 

The first I made was the replica of the 'brick' paper here (second left top row) 

I knew I'd got a brick 'mask'.. so I dug that out and then I got to work. I found my Versa Mark ink pad and a script stamp and stamped the script all over a plain white sheet of thin card stock. Then I embossed it with clear embossing powder and heat embossed it. 

Next I took my mask and two different inks.. and randomly 'splodged' inks between the brick shapes. 

Finally I rubbed the embossed text with kitchen roll and took off the excess ink from the script.

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice the text is back to front.. for some strange reason I own a stamp  that was made incorrectly..but it is ideal when you only want the appearance of text rather than words itself.

 And here is the final effect up close... 

and the whole page looks like this one below.

I was pleased with the end result and I knew exactly the project for it.. as you can see in one of my previous posts ...LO no. 2. 

I also needed a few little puffy stickers to add to my kit.. and I didn't have any appropriate ones.. so I made a few simple little flags and bunting by stamping, writing and using Ranger glossy accents on to give the effect of puffy stickers. 

You can see how I used these in LO no. 3 below

I hope you enjoyed my 'tutorial' and I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with yourselves! Thanks for looking

CKCB LO no 3

Evening all... 

Here is my latest use of my CKCB Kit for March 'Great Expectations' . 

This is another LO I made at the crop I went to on Saturday and I used a variety of the papers and embellishments from my kit. 

Over on UKS we had a fun night on Friday evening and we were asked to scraplift a LO from one of our fellow house mates... so my  inspiration came from one of my UKS house mates.- Jayne aka Daisychain888 in her LO here. 

As luck would have it, I had some ideal hearts in my kit that would work perfectly with my version of the LO. 

So here is my version of Jaynes LO.. but of course, using my own kit. 

Thanks for looking and do let me know you've popped by. 

CKCB LO NO. 2

Morning all..

I'm so excited! I have two new followers! I only have a few 'select' people that take the time to follow my blog..but the more the merrier... so welcome to you both!.. and please feel free to  follow me if you would like to.

On Saturday  at a crop I attended I was able to have a play with my new CKCB kit, 'Great Expectations' and here is another LO I made with it. 

This LO is representative of my own 'Great Expectation' As my last house was the biggest home renovation project we've undertaken. Anyone that knows me knows my DH and I are home improvement addicts! We are always moving house and renovating properties and selling it on.. it is something we both enjoy.. having moved 14 times in 34 years we're something of experts! 

This house was a run down wreck are there was HIDEOUS extension that had been added many years before... 

HIDEOUS extension came down!

and so we decided to take it down and rebuild a better extension to the side and move the garage to the other side of the house. The only thing that remained of the original house was three outside walls and the staircase.. everything else was replaced completely. I could load hundreds of photos for this post but I will try to refrain from adding too many.. but here are a few scattered around for you to see.

Before

Here are three photos that give you an idea of the level of work we undertook... isn't this 'before' kitchen photo a peach! LOL

 

 

During

The 'during' photo shows the existing staircase which we allowed to remain. The whole house was re-wired, re-plumbed, re-plastered, re everythinged! New Kitchen.. (as you can see), new bathroom, new garage, extended.. everything. We moved into rented for 7 months while we did the work and we lived there for a year before we sold it on. It was lovely while it lasted but we soon got bored again so we moved onto our next project!

 

After

I loved this kitchen.... I even had a built in coffee maker...sigh! 

 

Before

After

The bathroom was originally located on the ground floor, so we re-located it upstairs and put in an en-suite off the guest bedroom too.

For the actual LO I used the brick paper I had 'Counterfeited' and added the striped paper as if you would above a dado rail.. and then used the frame from my kit to frame the photo of the name plate we added to the front of the house.

It is my intention to make a second page like this to make it into a DLO and I will add a tag to explain more about the project.. I may even add a fold out album on the page so I can include more photographs... so watch this space! 

The inspiration for this LO was one I found over on Pinterest here I am also loading this layout for SIPIDI.. a brilliant challenge over on my friend Fionas blog Staring at the Sea. If you're wondering what SIPIDI is.. it is a brilliant idea from Fiona whereas you See It, Pin It, DO... how many of us are guilty of seeing lots and lots of things over on Pinterest and Pinning them and then never doing anything about it/with it. This blog encourages you to actually use what you pin.. why not hop on over and have a look after leaving me a note.. I love to hear your thoughts.

CKCB LO No 1

Hi again!

Having been asked to be Guest Designer for the CKCB blog for March.. I am thrilled to say the kit they chose inspired me to add some of my favourite papers from the My Minds Eye, Collectable range.  

I was also then arranging a Fun Night over on UKS for my housemates in the Green Buttons house. One of the challenges I then chose to set was to alter some chipboard.. as that is something I rarely do.

So here is the end result... I inked the chipboard and added UTEE.. I am rather pleased with the end result so I think I may well now be using this technique again.

The photos were taken in St Lucia in 2011 when I went to celebrate a special birthday. The colours on the island were amazing.. hence the title. 

There is a little tag behind the photos detailing the story of the colours all around us. 

Thanks for looking. 

Counterfeit Kit March 2014 'Great Expectations'

Good morning all.... what an honour to be asked to join the design team for the CKCB! I'm thrilled! 

Anyway.. enough of that... this month I was asked to make a kit that was representative of the February Kit over at CocoaDaisy . I thought it was a lovely kit and would be a pleasant move away from the last two kits that I made that featured a lot of red, white and dark colours. This was going to be a refreshing change! Here is the original

 At first I looked at what jumped out at me... and I saw raspberry and yellow... I was, at this stage, thinking how nice it would be to go down that avenue. However, on closer inspection of my stash I realised I really didn't have much in the way of raspberry.. I don't tend to lean towards pinks as I have very few 'girly' things to photograph! Living with my dear husband, two sons and three dogs, two of whom are boys (!) doesn't give me a lot of opportunity to use pink.. so I got to thinking 'how can I add Raspberry without buying more stash?'.. (which does rather defeat the object of this doesn't it?)

So this is what I came up with instead

I therefore decided I would alter some plain white paper to give me the raspberry I craved. I won't go into detail here about how I did it.. (you'll have to wait for that post) but I think I managed to find enough 'similar' papers to do a decent enough replica. 



I started my kit with the hexagonal paper from My Minds Eye, Collectable, collection and added some of the co-ordinating papers from the range together with other patterned papers .. so here it is. What do you think? Is it passable? 

I have decided to call this kit 'Great Expectations' as I think that is what the design team may have had when they asked me to join their illustrious team! Lets hope I don't let you all down. 



I added lots of little embellishments and even made a couple of the 'puffy stickers' with Glossy Accents to add in together with a heart stamp, some die cuts and a few random stickers and alphas, some bling, bakers twine, brads, flair buttons etc and I will add card stock as and when I need it.

I hope you've enjoyed your little visit, so now hop on over to Angelas Blog 
and see what she has compiled. Do remember to leave me a little message to let me know you've popped by.. and if you get lost head back over to the CKCB home page  to find your way back.


Take care now! 

Elaine
x