Wednesday Worktable - Wednesday August 26th - Leather Notebook

This is my contribution to WOYWW (What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday), over at JuliaDunnit's Blog. Each Wednesday, Julia invites fellow crafters and bloggers to show a photo or two of their worktables, and explain what they've been doing.
So, my mum's house move is over with - she's been in her new home for three weeks now and things are slowly getting sorted out and back to "normal".  I haven't had much time for blogging, or making things really, but this week I wanted to join in again and I even have a couple of projects to show off!

Julia has started on her Christmas cards, over at Stamping Ground... But I'm still working through the Wedding Season here, also a couple of personal projects. 

This was my desk in the morning: 

A bit tidy, I know, but this is only the little folding table.  I daren't show you my large work table - you might run away screaming and never return! 

So, on the table we have a leather cover for a little pocket notebook.  You can see the outline for the name and a butterfly to be painted onto the cover, plus a little pile of lined paper, for the pages. 

This is the lining on the other side of the leather.  A really pretty screen printed Indian paper.

And in the afternoon...

Finished Leather Pocket Notebook! 

This is a gift for my mum-in-law to give her friend, Sandra.  I made a similar notebook for Mum's birthday, which Sandra thought was lovely - so I promised Mum I would send her one as a present for Sandra, who is a lovely friend to her.  I hope she will be pleased with it. 

Also, you may remember the Honeymoon Album I showed in progress last time? 

Ta-Dah! Finished!

A label on the front... 

Large pocket, inside the Front cover... 

Two smaller pockets inside the Back cover. 

The book is on its way to America right now.  I've shown the customer some photos and she is very pleased, so I'm happy too. 

And finally (is this too many photos? Hmm...)

I've been making scrapbook pages, for the first time in months! 

This is for my niece - these are her two dear little girls, playing in the cornfield, by the windmill on a warm summery day! I want to add a little bit of journalling, but haven't decided what to write - I may ask my niece what she wants it to say, as this is for her to keep. 

* * *

So, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed seeing what I've been up to.  I'll try and join in again soon! 

I hope you'll come back and visit again.  When you've finished browsing around on my blog, do return to Julia's Stamping Ground, to see what's going on elsewhere this week. 

Scrap Club - Four Pages in One Day!

... must be a record (for Lizzie!)

Sunday was Scrap Club day.  As my title says, I managed 4 pages, which is pretty good going for me.  I tend to be slow and dreamy when scrapping, so it's not often that I manage more than 3 pages. 

I had a couple of details to finish, so I did that this afternoon, while the Gas engineer was overhauling the heating!

I used an adaptation of Shimelle's "Stash Diving" technique.  For Christmas I received a rather lovely and very thick pad of scrap papers, from my lovely Niece.  It is called "Lost and Found" by My Minds Eye.  There are a number of colourways and lots of designs, all co-ordinating beautifully.

I chose papers from three "sets", to go with a number of photos I wanted to scrap.  Then I cut pieces/strips of the papers and arranged them to make good backgrounds for my pages, using extras to mount the photos and create some embellishments. 

I have ended up with two single and one double layout; and I'm really pleased with them!  While I won't use this technique every time, it's certainly a handy starting point for creating some good pages with co-ordinating papers.

Here they are:

"Location Location Location"

The two photos are of our very favourite place, Wells-Next-the-Sea, in Norfolk.  As the journalling says, we'd love to live there, if funds and logistics would allow it.  We can't so we have to settle for frequent holiday visits. 

For those who are not familiar with "Kirsty and Phil", the title is borrowed from a popular British tv programme, where two property finders help people to locate their perfect homes. 

I cut little hearts from some scraps of the patterned papers, then used one of my small lino stamps, to make two prints, which I cut with a scalloped punch.  One was printed with a soft turquoise ink, the other with a much brighter shade, so I layered them, with the bright one raised on foam sticky-pads.

* * *

"Play Your Happy Music"

James loves his guitar - possibly more than he loves Sherlock!  He plays it every day and composes his own music.  His tunes are always "happy" and I love to hear him play.  It makes me smile! 

Recently I had a "proud mummy moment", when he played in a local fund-raising concert, at the church in a nearby village.  His friend, A,  got the concert started and his mum helped to organise it.  They did a fantastic job, arranging for the local middle school to bring their choir to sing and for local amateur and professional musicians to play for us.  A and another friend, M, have a band together; James joined them, with his guitar, as they sang / played two very nice songs.  James also had his own "spot", playing "Romance" by John Brunning, plus a tune he had composed himself, which he called "Spanish Armada" - it really sounds very Spanish and is a good, stirring piece, which he plays very well.  The concert raised a good bit of money - over £700 - which was split between the church fund and a charity nominated by A & his family.  We were all very proud of our boys!

The photo on this layout isn't from the concert, but it is James practicing.  We weren't allowed to take photos during the concert, however I know that A's mum did take one of James - I must ask her for a copy of it!

* * *

"Oh for a Book - and a Shady Nook"

Little E. loves to read her story books.  Keri-Anne took these wonderful photos of her reading and drawing. I think they are so lovely and just had to make a layout with them.  It ended up being a double-page layout, as I didn't want to separate them. 

I chose the large letters to emphasise the "Oh" and "Book", as I wanted to have a good "stand-out" title, but obviously couldn't make all words equally large.  This worked really well, with the two "speech marks" and the little pink letters for the rest of the quote.  I wrote the name and dates in grey pen, underneath the quote.  I used my new heart border punch to make some little trims for the title boxes, then cut larger hearts and some butterflies, to embellish little corners of the photos etc.  The cut-out hearts from the edging punch made great "confetti" to decorate the journalling box.  I haven't written any journalling - I think I will ask Keri-Anne to help me with that.

The photo isn't very good - in fact, none of the photos are good, as the light was very poor this afternoon.  You'll just have to believe that these pages look much nicer "in real life"!

* * *

My other Project this weekend, was to have another go at tidying and organising my Studio.  I didn't get it all done - there is still a lot to do - but I made some progress:

I put the folding table under the window.  It had been cluttering up the middle of the room, in the way of the white desk and shelves.  Now the room feels enormous! 

It's hard to see, but there is now an extra shelf at the bottom of the unit.  I had a big stack of paper on the bottom shelf, which was too difficult to get into.  Whenever I needed something, I had to lift out all the paper, so I could get at what I wanted; I had cleared the second shelf from the bottom (the one that's visible, without much on it now) and put half the paper storage on that.  However, the shelf has a big space above it, which wasn't being used.  We have added an "in-between" shelf, so my paper can all be stored on two shelves, but I now have the tall space back, to use for boxes etc.  Still need to sort it out, but I'll get there soon! 

I did tidy my desk and table, but the mess crept back onto them very speedily - especially when I got lots of stuff out, to get ready for Scrap Club!

* * *

The other thing I did on Saturday afternoon:

"Midsummer", by Mariann Johansen-Ellis - a lino reduction print.

I've had this print, which I bought from Mariann, since June 2010. 

It had been languishing in a folder, shamefully neglected, along with all my other prints. 

I finally got it framed up and mounted on the wall, above my white desk (spot the reflections)!  

And I was fed-up with having all the lovely art prints I'd collected, sitting in a folder, waiting for me to save up for frames and mounts.  So, I cut some pieces of white and black card, then mounted them with invisible photo-corners (so I didn't damage them).  Then I attached them all to the wall behind my desk.  I think they look fabulous!

On the left are three wonderful photographs, by my very talented niece, Keri-Anne Pink. 

There are prints here by four artists. 

Top left: Three Cat Lino Prints, Lori Dean-Dyment; Below: "Dandelions", Nina Moscrip (was Clough); 

Bottom Left and also the other bird prints along the bottom row: Amanda Colville;

Top of the middle section - the deep blue owl print - "Night Flight", Celia Hart. 

To the right, next to my poster: "Old Books" reduction lino print, Jennifer Bass; 

details of two prints by John W. Golden. 

The other four prints?  Well, they are my own work and I thought I really should put them up on my own wall!  They are "Reflection" - a three-colour lino reduction print; "Spanish Lemons" - a four-colour lino reduction; the central one, below the clock, is a drypoint etching, "Lace Birds", which I did on my printmaking course at Knuston.  At the top right is a collograph print, which I also did at Knuston; it's not fabulous, but it's not awful either and I like it, so there it is!!

And that is my new Art Wall, that I have been threatening to make for about two years!

So, I think I achieved something this weekend.  Quite pleased with myself!

A Mini-Album

I think I mentioned that DS had chosen to go for a day out at "Go Ape", for his birthday this year?  Anyway, that is what he did; his friend and DH went round the course with him.  I was allowed in as a spectator and I took over 100 photos!  They had a training session, then went round the rest of the course.  Overall, from start of the training, to the final loooooong zip-wire, it took us 3 hours to go round.  It was brilliant fun and the boys had a great time.
This weekend, it's J's friend's birthday.  Today he has been invited to go and join his friend for his own birthday treat - they are going "skydiving" at a local centre, where they have a large, vertical wind tunnel.  I don't think that activity lasts 3 hours though - probably more like 3 minutes I'm afraid, but I hope they are going to have fun.
Meanwhile, as a little gift, I have made this mini-album for J's friend:

The book is made with Kraft cardstock and double-sided papers by American Crafts.  The letters are by Papermania and MLS. 

J. took part in the choosing of the materials and embellishments.  He wrote this journalling panel.  Under the journalling panel and the kraft tree, there are magnets, which fasten the flap.

The back cover, which wraps round to make the front flap, has sparkly lines on it.  DS thought that they were not "girly", as the colours of the stripes are quite strong.  So that was alright then... !

You may notice the arrow has "pull me" written on it. The green-striped paper is attached to a piece of kraft cardstock, which pulls out from under the photo.  It has a message from J. to his friend, about the fun they had.  J is really pleased with this book and I'm sure it will please his friend (and parents) too.  In fact, I'm rather pleased with it myself!

I also made a 12" Page today.  But I can't show it to you. It's a Secret.  If you want to know why, go and look here!

Shimelle's Scrapping Weekend - Hot Pink Hoopla Challenge

Well, I have had a crazy-busy week.  I completed two urgent commission books and am working on a third book (two down, five to go....).  However, somewhere I managed to squish in some scrapping and enter some of Shimelle's challenges.  I helped that last Sunday was Scrap Club day, so I got a good start there.  I worked on this page, for the "Signature Accent Challenge" and this for the "Colour Story Challenge", then I found this page from May and wrote a secret journalling card, to tuck away in the space I had left for it (but never filled!), to enter the "Add to the Story Challenge".

So, feeling very pleased with myself, I posted my three pages.  And have had some very nice comments - thanks everyone!

Then Shimelle posted some video tutorials, with pages she had made.  There's a beautiful page with a Bingo Card and Butterflies, a new Sketch of the Week  and a gorgeous page with a hot pink background, loads of embellishments, happy colours, bling and plenty of zing too! 

Shimelle's Hot Pink Hoopla Challenge was to make a page that's Inspired By her hot pink page, in some way or other. 

Well, this is my page and I'll explain my "inspiration" below:

I loved the idea of scrapping bright colours.  I used to stick to fairly pastel, soft colours for my page backgrounds, but recently I have made pages with very bright colours, including the backgrounds. 

I scrap for relaxation and enjoyment and don't really follow anyone's "rules" or suggestions much, but I do often get some inspiration from other scrappers - especially Shimelle, whose bright, happy and fun-filled pages are always so varied and exciting, even while they all seem to retain a "very Shimelle style". 

I did make a "hot pink" page, back in March, to celebrate the fabulous creatures made by my students, on my first Sock Creature course (see it here).  So I thought it would be great to make another. 

I got out my scrappy supplies and a pack of photos I wanted to scrap.  I found these photos and really wanted to use them.  However, it was clear that hot pink would not work with these pictures.

But red? Red might just work... the carpet had a red background, which shows up in both pictures and gives them a lot of warmth.  So I found a sheet of lovely bright red cardstock. 

Of course, there was then the question of the "other colours" to use.... And there, in my pile of scrappy stuff, were more aqua and white pieces, left from when I made my page for the Colour Story challenge.  Well, it would've been rude not to use them up.

So, I did!  And then started adding the "Bling":

I made the flower embellishment, from two hand-cut paper flowers, a fab little floral rub-on from Sassafrass Lass and a good old red brad (and not forgetting the inked edges!).  The painted butterfly was from a necklace I found in town last year.  I bought it because I wanted to use the butterflies for scrapping embellishments, so I pulled it apart and put the butterflies in a jar.  I've used one or two before now; this time I put pearly vellum behind the wings, so it would show through the holes, then I added some Stickles, for extra zingy blingy-ness.  I love the result and it looks very pretty on this page.

This chipboard sticker is from the "White Out" collection, by We Are Memory Keepers.  I received a packet of these in the fabulous prize, that I won from a giveaway by the lovely Susanne.  A funny thing though, was a mistake in the wording; it read "too sweet to possibly to forget"... which obviously doesn't quite make sense.  So I wasn't sure about using it.  Til I remembered my butterfly punch, that cuts lovely mini butterflies... So, one cut-out, blinged-up butterfly, strategically placed over the offending error... Who would know, if I hadn't told you?

And finally, one of my "signature" things... I wanted some appropriate lettering.  Played about with various options from my stash, but nothing quite worked.  In the end, I used white Thickers (Jewellery Box), plus the white rub-ons, which are from Maya Road (and which I have had about a century and never used!!). 

I inked the edges of the Thickers and stuck them down.  They were white, with red-inked edges... bleah.... I used the ink-pad to make a nice red dabbed effect.  Nice... but not quite right...

Stickles?  No...

Then I remembered my New Glitter.  I went to a "Stampin' Up Party" at a friend's house, just at the end of July and bought a couple of great label punches, plus a pot of very fine glitter, with a kind-of diamondy shimmer.  I also bought a glue pen, with a broad fibre tip, which is great for just stroking on and whizzing the glitter over.  You can also heat the glitter with a heat-gun, to use it like embossing powder.  I've tried it both "cold" and "hot" and it looks really nice both ways. 

So, there it is - glue pen, plus lovely glitter, equals blinged-up letters.  Just right for my page!

And the inspiration?  The bright colours, the bling, the stickers/ embellishments dotted around the page... The sheer feeling of fun!  And all of that seemed to really suit these gorgeous photos of my wonderful little Great Niece, playing happily at her Christening Day Party!

Hope you like it too!

Shimelle's Scrapping Weekend - Signature Accent Challenge

This weekend, Shimelle held a great Scrapbooking Challenge Weekend at her blog!

I decided to make the best of a day's scrapping at Scrap Club and I made / completed several pages (on Sunday and since), as part of the challenges.

A slightly loose connection, since I am not certain that I have one "signature accent" as such...  However, this page has four of the things I have been using most on my layouts in the past few months - circles mounted onto scalloped circles, something fancy done with ribbons, inked edges (on everything!) and hand-embellished/ hand-made lettering. 
The lettering is something I have always done - If I can't find some letters I like for my titles, I either embellish plain ones, or just cut out some from paper that I do like! 

I like ribbons and have fun fiddling with them in lots of ways - flowers, bows, double-layered strips with a slider decoration... and the technique on this page, made by cutting slots with a great little edge punch that I was given, then threading a narrow ribbon through, to make a decorative edging. I've used it several times and I love the effect.  It even looked good in black, just here!

And the scalloped circles are something I've had fun with several times.  I used them on the page about my Present from Deb (though to be fair, she made these as labels for the various sweeties etc in the parcel!); I made my own hand-printed lino-cut embellishments for this page... I just like sticking circles on my layouts!

And I've discovered that inking the edge of a photo, matt or other element for a page, really makes it stand out and gives it a "finished" look.  The edges of photos are often very white and they show up against the paper when you matt them; inked in a matching or contrasting colour, the photo suddenly "pops" on the page and somehow stands out much better. It just looks more complete somehow.  I like it anyway and use it A Lot.

So, this page has all four of those things - I think it therefore qualifies as a "Signature" layout for me; I hope you agree!

Anniversary

This week it was Mr LizzieMade and my Wedding Anniversary.  

We buy ourselves a joint gift for our Anniversary - have done for about 4 years now.  It tends to be something lovely for our garden, that we can share together.  We've bought a garden bench, a large parasol/umbrella, a tree....  This year we have chosen a rather nice arched trellis, to go in a space created when we removed an overgrown shrub.  I don't have a photo to show you though.... Must take one "before" and "after" the arch goes up! 

However, I also received a Delivery:

My Lovely Anniversary Flowers from my Wonderful D.H.

I made DH a present:

An Anniversary Book

It has a wrap-round cover, fastened with ribbon.  The pages are held in by just a loop of linen thread, in the top corner. 

Page 1

Pages 2 & 3

Pages 4 & 5

Pages 6 & 7

Pages 8 & 9

Pages 10 & 11

Last Page - a lovely quote I like so much...

The papers I used were part of a gift set, in the Simply Homemade magazine.  They are a collection of papers and cut-out elements, designed by KaiserCraft.  I thought they were just lovely and they really suited what I wanted to make.  I used cardstock from a pack by Papermania, in chocolate brown and a gold colour.  The black written quotes were on a sheet of bible quotations, but I can't find the label to say where they are from (sorry!).

This was a "quick make" for me.  I decided I wanted to produce a mini-book, with photos of us two and DS.  I found the papers and thought they were just right, then found the cardstock... Then just went for it! I kept the design of each page as simple as possible, just adding the odd little "extra" cut-out shape or paper-ribbon trim, with the quote stickers here and there. It worked so well and DH was delighted with it (so was I!).

He suggested I should photograph his book and post it on my blog - so here you are!  The photos are not great, as I took them in the evening; but I think they look quite okay.  I'm rather proud of my little mini-book.  Amy is so right - Simple is often the Best.

The Prize Kit - First Scrap Page

I posted about a prize I won, from the wonderful Susanne of Snaps and Snippets.  The Kit was put together as part of the Counterfeit Kit Blog challenges.  This was Susanne's Version and she was offering it as a prize - which I was lucky enough to receive!

I was determined to make the most of a whole day's scrapping, at yesterday's Scrap Club and I set out to use some of these papers and letter stickers -  

along with some of the lovely embellishments that came with the kit.

 

There was lots more, but I won't include any more photos. 

If I could remember where the instructions are, I'd use one of the Photo Collage Templates I downloaded last month!! I just tried to make one and can't remember how to use it.  Obviously, I need to do a lot more of those, to make it stick. 

Anyone care to remind me where the instructions are to be found?  I'm sure someone out there (Amy? Sue?) knows how!  Duh...

Anyway, I had some great photos from last Saturday, when we all went to the park for a good run in the sunshine.  I chose four lovely pictures, of J and E. having a wonderful time on the big swing.  These go just right with the bright colours of the kit. 

Here's my finished Page - J. was responsible for choosing the words of the title - I think it was a good choice!

I love the zingy feel of this page. I don't often make such brightly coloured pages, but I'm sure I should do them more often. 

The photos are just too lovely not to scrap - J and E were having such a great time together, with much laughter and messing about.  They are such good friends and J is really quite good to E, considering he's a boy of 13 and she is only a tiny girl.  She seems to love him too and will happily join in his games.  She's a brave and adventurous girl anyway, so the big swing was a thing of excitement for her, not something to be scared of.  I love seeing them play together! 

The quote on the chipboard embellishment seemed really apt.  I will enjoy remembering those few minutes of our lives, when the children were so happily playing. I hope they will remember too. 

I started a second layout, using this kit.  I hope to finish it this week, in odd moments between book-binding projects.  I'll post it soon, with the other projects I was working on yesterday, which are nearly finished too!

Hope you're all having a good Monday.