UK Scrappers Christmas Countdown

Welcome along to the 24th of the UK Scrappers Christmas Countdown Projects: A Set of Stamped Cards.

I don't know if you are like me and sometimes find it difficult to come up with card designs you are happy with; I think it is because I am so used to working on a 12x12" canvas that I find a smaller one far trickier.

When I do find a design I'm pleased with, I tend to make a batch of similar cards, just changing up the colours and sentiments.  These cards were made with a set from one of my favourite manufacturers; Altenew, along with many of the dye inks I own.😉

I die cut card fronts as I find them less messy to work with, and if I get ink on the back it will be covered once I glue them to the card base.

I stamped using a MISTI first my background tree, in a light colour.  After cleaning the stamp I changed to another colour family. again the lightest ink and stamped onto a fresh card front.  I continued until I had stamped all of the five lightest images onto 5 cards and then removed this stamp from the platform.  The next image was lined up over the light image on the MISTI and stamped in the next darkest colour in each family, cleaning the stamps each time. I finished each tree with the most detailed stamp, again lined up and stamped with the darkest colour.

Using the colour families allowed me to experiment with unusual choices like pink and even orange.
I completed the stamping with bold scripted sentiments on top of the trees, some were from carols (Altenew) and others were by American stamp company Simon Says Stamp.

I completed the cards with either gems, sequins or Nuvo drops and a small star punched with an Xcut palm punch from gold mirror card.

So, if you have a lot of cards to make and are feeling bereft of inspiration, then just come up with (or lift) one or two designs 😀, and then just make sets of cards on a theme.

And do take a look at UK Scrappers to see what my fellow crafters have been up to this month in preparation for the festive season!  Tomorrow Jayem will be making a seasonal project.

Harry's First Vote.

Back in May, before the general election, Harry-who turned 18 back in October-voted for the forst time.

I used a UKScrappers challenge to complete the page, to use a split of 60%, 30% and 10% of colours on the page.  My 60% was dark blue; 30% yellow and 10% light blue.

The title is a mix of dotty Thickers and tile letters.

The papers are by Shimelle (Little by Little range) with some scraps from her earlier ranges too.

I finished the page with Nuvo drops in the transluscent and glossy finishes.

Gothic Splendour

Another page about our visit to Arbury hall here.  This one was made as part of the UKScrappers mini cybercrop, the challenge was to dig into the mountain of washi tape we all have!!

I used a Graphic 45 kraft background, and covered it with trips of washi in vintage shades, along with gold, green and blue. A strip of three photos cover much of the washi (but as I have so much, this didn't bother me!)

The original design called for us to die-cut embellishments (feathers) from washi covered card.

 I decided to use an Xcut die set of woodland tags from both kraft and the washi covered card.

I finished the layout using a Tim Holtx 'Spooky' 12" alphabet die, along with a banner underneath.

UK Scrappers Summer snaps challenge.

On UK Scrappers this season a challenge has been set to take the following photos and then to scrapbook a few (of course!) I'll be collating mine here as I go along and then hopefully post the final outcome at the end of the summer.
Challenges not yet met are marked in red.

1 vapour trails or clouds on Weymouth Promenade.

2 a horse drawn vehicle, a barge that was originally pulled by a horse.

3 flowers in bloom; wild marguerites blooming in a Portland quarry

4 a summer job in the garden

5 something typifying your holiday destination,
My daughter lying on the beach shaded by her hat.

6 hats
Dad in my sister's hat!

7 ice cream

8 kites or balloons
9 bubbles

10 ducks, swans or seabirds

11 summer sunrise or sunset
Sunset over Portland, the view from our caravan.

12 eating al fresco
Fish and chips from the paper at the Black Country Museum

13 somewhere you would only visit when the sun shines
Weymouth beach

14 flags or bunting
In Greenhill gardens

15 summer shoes
on a typical British summer's day?

16 fruit growing, in the garden, on a tree, or in the hedgerow

17 water

A view of the Fleet

18 umbrellas

19 glasses
Cocktails :)

20 fete, fair or festival

And your A-E Substitutes list

A Play
My nephew putting

B Anything in your favourite colour

C Something that made you smile;
my daughter having afternoon tea.

D friendship
My daughters, window shopping at the Black Country Museum.

E Just girls or Just boys
My sister, daughter and me on the harbour wall.

Just another excuse to take lots of photos!

UKS Challenge

It is my turn this week to set the challenge on UK Scrappers.  As a teacher, I decided on an alphabet style challenge, devising a crafting AtoZ, and then challenging scrappers to choose a favourite word of 6 letters or more and use their chosen stash from the alphabet to make a page using the corresponding AtoZ items.

My word was WEYMOUTH.
W for wood
E for enamel dots/shapes
Y for yellow
M for more than one photo
O for overlay (transparent or vellum)
U for unloved stash
T for tape
H for handwriting

I managed to use all of the items the transparency is the typewriter overlaying a piece of K&Co cardstock used to back the layout too; it must be over 6 years old so I think it qualifies as unloved!

Most of the stash I used comes from the Simple Stories 'Say Cheese' range, I'm just finishing off using a huge kit leftover I had after teaching a scrapbook class last November.

So, if you would like to have a go at this challenge yourself, take a look at this page on UK Scrappers where you will find the full AtoZ!

Victory to the Wasps.

Another win for our local rugby team and these photos fit this scrapbook sketch I set as a challenge on UK Scrappers this month.

I used little polaroids from the 6x6 paper pad to make the banner with punched starts added on top.

I didn't use the flowers or butterflies from the sketch to keep the page looking more masculine.

I do love the chipboard title letters, just a shame you can't get much of the Starshine collection at the moment as American Crafts are moving warehouses and shipping almost nothing out to suppliers.

I used the Starshine papers along with some by Basic Gray ad a few letters fro the title.

New Year Party

A page about the party we went to at my friend's house on New Year's Eve,

My friend lives in a beautiful Victorian house in Nottingham, and she threw a fabulous party at the close of last year.

The snowflake paper is extremely old, so old it has no manufacturers strip; and as it was only paper I backed it onto card.

Most of the other papers and embellishments are Pink Paislee, with a couple of added pieces from Paperchase.

As this is part of a challenge on UK Scrappers (Scrap Like You Mean it Rebooted or SLYMI) to use stamps, there are many on this page.  The stitched edge is a stamp; title using a stamp set free with a magazine; other stamps by Shimelle and Ali Edwards.

A Festive Selfie

I know selfies are very popular, but I have problems managing to take them.

 I am short, and my arms are not long either, so I can never usually manage to take a good shot.

 The title and journalling on this layout are all about this problem and my solution which is usually to ask Kevin (with his long limbs) to take the photo.

It also meets a weekly challenge on UKScrappers: to use some old stash (the dotty paper); new stash (Christmas Magic); a borrowed page (scraplifted from Maggie B) and blue in the stripy paper.

After feeling very ill for days on end with sinusitis my headache is at last beginning to fade, enough to upload this page.

12x12 again!

This is my first full-sized scrapbook page since I finished my journal; I always find it difficult to get back to 12x12" after taking time working on smaller sizes and this year seemed worse than ever.

To help me out, I used a sketch featured on UKScrappers from Sketchy Thursday, I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

I decided to get started on my full size Christmas photos to get them in albums at last.

It also helps me to use up the left over JYC stash!

The bunting lights were stamped, cut out and glossy accents added over the top.

I have about 6 more full size pages to make now I have sorted my photos, so time to get scrapping!