Best Mate, Chief Bridesmaid

This is my first layout with the February kit from Sarah's Cards. It's full of fabulous Glitz Design papers which I absolutely love. I'm still working my way through my wedding photos, and thought it was about time I scrapped one of my Chief Bridesmaid. I really like this sneaky shot of us which was taken by a family member, while we were busy posing for the official photographer.

There was a lovely set of Fancy Pants alphas with the kit, but I didn't think they were quite right for this layout, so I used flocked Thickers and Adornit alphas instead. I've also misted on this layout - it's the first time I've been brave enough to mist on a finished layout, rather than just using the mist on the background cardstock before I start! You can't really see it very well in the main photo, but you can see a bit in the first close up. 

I also used some Prima stamps and a Martha Stewart butterfly punch.

I've loosely based my layout on the February sketch from the Sarah's Cards blog.

Winter Mini Book

It's my first Wednesday Extra post over at The Studio Challenges, so I thought I'd share some tips on covering chipboard - I love using chipboard and often cover it in patterned paper, but it's taken me ages to find a foolproof method so I thought I'd share it with you today. I hope you'll pop over for a look :D

I've had this Maya Road chipboard tag book for ages, but a combination of the gorgeous papers in the Fancy Pants 'Happy Together' collection and loads of snowy photos inspired me to turn it into a record of this Winter.

Blog Candy

 Have you seen the fabulous pile of goodies that Lou Collins is giving away to one lucky follower? It looks amazing :D

One Happy Puppy

This week's Sunday Challenge at The Studio is to create a layout using frames.

Frames! Use a frame of some kind on your page. Frame your picture or your whole layout, just get a frame or two on there! 

I used Fancy Pants papers and stickers from my January kit from Sarah's Cards, a Tim Holtz flourish stamp and Jillibean Soup corrugated alphas. The frame is around the main photo, and is a clear acrylic shape by Fancy Pants which I've run through a Cuttlebug embossing folder - it's not that easy to see in the main layout pic, but if you have a look at the close up shots you can see it's there! I took these photos indoors and it's so hard to get the lighting right at this time of year.

I took loads of photos of Mojo in the river on this particular walk, and I knew I wanted to use more than one on my page. I don't do a lot of multi photo layouts, so I needed some inspiration. I was really pleased when I spotted this sketch over at Sketchy Thursdays - it was perfect!

2011 Diary - version 2!

I've been using my diary at work for a while now, and had a lot of lovely comments, so I offered to do create diary covers for my colleagues. My manager took me up on the offer, and requested a cover which was 'green and blue with a bird theme'. Fortunately my January kit from Sarah's Cards fit the bill perfectly, with Fancy Pants 'Happy Together' papers, Maya Road chipboard birds and Upsy Daisy rub ons. Here's the finished cover, I'll be taking it into work with me on Thursday so I hope she likes it! (I also hope my measurements are correct....)

A little bit of Tim

It was my Mum's birthday recently, and after much discussion about suitable presents, I eventually bought tickets for us both to attend a 'Tim Holtz Style Tag Book' workshop at our local craft shop, and I'm so glad I did! We both had a great time getting into an inky, painty mess, and came away with some great tags and new techniques to try on future projects. We both decided to keep our tags as tags, rather than bind them into a tag book, but I want to turn mine into a display somehow, so they don't end up lost in the bottom of a box - if anyone has any ideas please shout!

Tag 1 'Tag Art' - applying ink to a craft mat and using the tag to lift the ink to create a multicoloured background. This didn't work quite as well as I wanted it to so I went over the whole tag with fired brick distress ink afterward. The words were stamped with black archival ink.
Tag 2 'in dreams' - this used two shades of distress ink in the background, which were then stamped over using water to lift some of the ink. Then the design was added with other stamps using distress ink and black archival ink.
Tag 3 'The Journey' - we played with crackle paint on this one, but there was only one colour available - I think a lighter colour would have worked better but never mind. The background was inked with distress inks and stamped with a background stamp, and the detail was added with black archival ink.
Tag 4 'Start & Ending' - The background for this one was created with acrylic paint, the patterns were stamped with versamark and covered with perfect pearls, and detail was added with black archival ink. The lines were created using the edge of a credit card dipped in paint.
Tag 5 'Numbers' - The background was created with distress inks, and patterns stamped with darker shades of ink. The text was stamped in black archival ink and then two of the words were highlighted with doodling and glossy accents.
Tag 6 'Live the life' - Distress ink background again with a background stamp over, details in black achival ink, then a fern shaped mask was laid over the tag and it was misted with a shimmer mist. The smaller tag was created in the same way and fixed on with a brad.

Look What I've Got!

This is the second of the two layouts that I've got in the current issue of Scrapbook Magazine. Again, apologies for the poor photos, but they were taken at the last minute before the layouts were packed up and posted off.

The photo is of my friend, Lou, and a very wicked hot chocolate topped with a mountain of cream! I wanted to make my second layout as different as possible from my first, so I went with bold bright colours to tie in with the photo. 

The papers are from the Pink Paislee 365 degrees collection, apart from the playing cards which were cut from Crate Paper Restoration papers.  

The Studio Challenges - February Sponsor

Fancy winning a 3 month subscription to Masterful Scrapbook Design? Join in with any of the Sunday Challenges at The Studio and you could do just that!

I Dream In Chocolate

This is one of the two layouts that I have in the current issue of Scrapbook Magazine - apologies for the poor photos, but I realised I hadn't taken any photos as I was packing them up to be posted off, so quickly snapped a few. 

When Lindsey asked me to create two layouts for the magazine based on the theme 'Naughty but Nice' I knew one of them had to be about our wedding cake! Neither of us like fruit cake, so we always knew that our wedding cake wasn't going to be traditional. I'm addicted to Maltesers, so the idea of a mountain of them was very appealing, and between us our lovely cake maker and I came up with the idea of a four tier chocolate cake covered in Maltesers! I think she did a brilliant job and I was so pleased with the end result - it got a lot of comments on the day :D 

I made a lot of the accessories for the wedding, including the seating plan, the table menus, favours, jewellery and bouquets; and it's my bouquet that you can see next to the cake in the photo :D I was also lucky enough to have my wedding dress made for me, and I used some of the offcuts of material in this layout to give a rich feel.