Party

A multi photo layout with the Maxwells out for Dad's 80th birthday.

Amy Tan papers again, quite a bit of stamping (Heidi Swapp) along with chipboard from one of her storytelling kits.

Title is a Thickers set, just getting to the end of these now.

PSV Cake.

Dad drove buses for almost all his working life, he got his PSV licence in London back in the 1960s.

We decided to have a cake for his 80th birthday made with the design of his driver's badge on the top.

More Amy Tan papers and a lovely ledger paper for the background.  A Heidi Swapp stamp with Catherine Pooler inks completed the embellishments.

Surprise!

A layout for Dad's 80th birthday .

The family were all together in a lovely Italian restaurant in Sheffield back in March.
I used more of the Amy Tan papers for the page. The first of lots of Sheffield layouts. The title is an acrylic word by Heidi Swapp.

Another 80th birthday.

After my father in law's
 birthday back in December,  it is my own dad's today.

The whole family are heading up to Sheffield for the weekend,  including his two sisters.

I made Dad a card using lots of Tim Holtz papers and dies.

The pocket die was ideal for tucking in photos, I printed a pair of pictures of him as a little boy, and others linked to his life: South London, a vintage routemaster (he was a bus driver) and pictures of Charlton Athletic.
Happy birthday Dad!

Shocking!

My eldest daughter reaches 27 today.  I know it's a cliché, but the years seem to fly by as the children have become adults. It's obvious she is grown up now as she asked for new bedding for her birthday!

I made her a card using Altenew layering dies (free with a Papercraft magazine), daffodils are perfect for the early spring...with the weather being unseasonably warm, they are growing quickly this year.

On the plus side, I made lots of flowers, enough to make Easter cards too.

Another birthday layout

I made a second page about my eldest daughter's recent birthday, this time using a pair of silly photos.

Again I used one of the Clear the Scrap Desks prompts by Shimelle as inspiration.  The design is a 'shelf' with the photos, papers and embellishments sitting on top of it and the title and journalling hanging underneath.

The title is cut from funky foam using the Tim Holtz Deco XL die, the stamps are by Ali Edwards.


Most of the chipboard is by MME (Jubilee), and I finished the page with a 4x3" PL card and a scattering of sequins.

A New Start

My daughter has made some big changes in her life this year, and her birthday layout journals about them.

She has a new job, new home and is living in a new city; I do miss her as she isn't as close to me as she was when she lived in Birmingham. 

The background paper is by Paige Evans, this is another layout inspired by Shimelle's 'Clear the Desk' class.  It contains a mix of papers, all inspired by the colours in the floral paper.

I have really enjoyed the class as it has helped me to mix up a wide range of papers -old and not so old- and to get them out of my stash and into my scrapbooks!
Papers and embellishments are by K and Co, Kaisercraft, MME, Shimelle and Paige Evans. 

50 Today

My 'baby' brother was 50 just before Christmas and we made a big day of it. 

After a trip to the panto (see the last post) and a few cocktails we headed to a local independent restaurant for a lovely meal. 

The papers are again from the Docrafts retro range, the page sits opposite the Panto page in my scrapbook, so using the same range of papers and die set for the title makes the double page look better.

Around about 4 pages to go before I get back onto my usual pages.

A Shared Birthday

My daughter and her boyfriend share the same birthday, so I made them both a card to celebrate.

Both are stamped using Altenew stamps, hers a stitched flower, his a cat.

I added sequins to Hannah's, and am loving the new stitched flowers with layers of stamps that lie next to each other to look like a cross stitched design.

Glasses cards

Sometimes it is hard to come up with ideas for cards for men

. 

This set by Pete Hughes (Looking Dapper) can make interesting cards for them.

I cut out lots of the shapes to make a set of cards. The square stitched, backgrounds are by Tim Holtz and the banner is another Sizzix die.

I stamped a simple birthday greeting in grey using my favourite Versafine ink...

one card has a 'happy' script die cut by Hero Arts.

I'm Back!

Sorry about my absence online, but I am back for now!

I had a look in one of my craft cupboards last week and found a bowl full of shapes I had cut from card last year.  I had bought a few new Sizzix dies and wanted to play with them, but decided to make use of the old shapes cut out to make a few cards. I will be posting details over the next week or so.

The first card is made with a peacock designed by Pete Hughes, The little feathers on the tail took a lot of cutting out, but the effort was worth it.
I added sequins and a sentiment stamped in grey Versafine ink, partly direct to the card, and partly on another Pete Hughes banner die.

Birthday Bowling

Bowling is the ideal birthday activity in the summer, especially if the weather is poor, so our whole family headed for the bowling alley back in August to celebrate my nephew's 15th birthday.

Another project life style page here, with some positively antique stash.  The pocket cards come from the same set, and I cut out embellishments (candles and a banner) from some of the cards.

The large dotted paper is from a Papermania birthday set, it also had stickers (balloons, circles and stars) and must be around ten years old!

I knew there was a reason I rarely threw away my old stash!

Happy Birthday Sis!

It was my lovely sister's birthday yesterday. She's just over a year younger than me; here we are at Christmas last year... not looking at all alike!

I made her a summery beach hut card for today and as she didn't want much, I just bought her a pretty vase and filled it with summer flowers.

Hope she likes them!

An Altenew Card

I love the simple flowers stamp by Altenew, they have a really funky retro look.

They were my stamps of choice to make a card for my Mum's birthday in the middle of January.  I used the MISTI and masked the images to make the bouquet...

and finished off with a stamped sentiment from the painted set and a knot of ribbon.

Birthday Joy.

Another festive birthday, Kevin's dad celebrates on the 28th, so this always helps us to extend the season.

The page is translucent as I had used a dotted vellum on the 27th, I just had to make sure I Put the photo and embellished parts of the pages back to back.  Using double sided papers helped too!

The title was scripted by me along with some very short journalling.  As they were in the middle of having an extension built, the walls were bare breeze blocks.  Despite this, they still decorated for Christmas, including stapling some old white wall paper and adding starts and snowflakes with sellotape!

No more babies...

My youngest reached 18 today, so our house is now officially child free. I do feel qiute sad really, the end of an era.

I did make my boy a card to mark the day.

The Earth is a layered stamp by Altenew, and the background is inked with Distress inks.

  I stamped the sentiments inside and out with a variety of Altenew stamps.

Good Weather

...and the excitement of the Olympics in Rio meant very little crafting has gone on here. I made an 18th birthday card for my nephew on Friday...but have even been too lazy to sort and print my holiday photos :I  Well, here is my card.

A little die cutting,  camera an Altenew stamp, little words by All Edwards, text paper Anna Griffin and Kraft paper and banner by Papermania.
A real stash dive for this one!

Northern Lights

After playing with my ink blending for the moon cards I decided to have a go at the Northern Nights effect I had also seen online.  Lots of ink blending, but this time with brighter colours, and toned down with blue and black on top made the background for this card.  I flicked water onto the inks to reactivate them, and then used an old dry toothbrush with acrylic paint (white) to flick a few bright stars to finish the look.

A simple stamp of a cityscape (Seattle) and label stamp for the sentiment, cut out and mounted onto foam completed the card.

I really love how this card turned out, the red is a little bright, but the city overstamped looks great.

Two birthdays.

My eldest daughter and her boyfriend share the same birthday, only he was born a year after Hannah.  I made cards for them both using Anna Griffin papers and stamps.

For his I used a selection of papers from the For the Boys papers, the cake and sentiment were stamped from a birthday set.

I also added a die cut made using a Cuttlebug die.
Hannah's card was far more feminine.

 I used border and corner stamps on the card surface, adding some patterned paper to the centre of the card. The sentiment is also stamped and cut out, and embellishments are decoupaged , along with a pink die cut swirl.

I can't believe she is 24!

Happy 80th birthday

I never forget my Aunty Margaret's birthday as it falls on Burns Night.  This year is a special birthday, so I made her a special card. She has a great fondness for purple, so I used purple cardstock from Natures gallery A4 pack (Papermania) to emboss with an Anna Griffin folder.

The background paper is by Graphic 45, as is the bird and nest image.  I made the flowers using an ancient Xcut quilling die, rolling up the strip the die cut and gluing with a hot glue gun.
The age is stamped, and I added two stamped sentiments inside.

I added a metal snowflake for this winter birthday:I hope she likes the card!