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Earlier this week, I celebrated 300 blog posts and wanted to share the love!

I was feeling a bit under the weather and asked you to share something that cheers you up - I have had some lovely comments already but a couple more would be even better.

Go to this post (Help Me Celebrate!) and leave me a comment. Your chance of winning is high!

The sun is shining today and I am sitting out on my balcony, soaking in a few healthy rays. Now that cheeps me up!

Come and join in the fun...

You know a kit has run its course when...

.... you create something that you look at and think... bleh!

This is exactly such a layout. I like the colours. I like the papers. I like the design (courtesy of Page Maps 2). I like the photos. But all together, it does nothing for me at all!

Anyway, more photos used up and almost all these products are ancient! Old Fancy Pant papers, Heidi Swapp tapes, KI journalling spots and a scrabble alphabet which had never been used and is probably 4 years old. So good in a way but bad that the combination leaves me somewhat cold. :-)

So, I guess it's time to move on then. To break up the rest of my March Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit and put the pieces where they belong so that I can move on. Move on to a new month and a new challenge kit. And also to move on to some of the still unfinished kits I have sitting around here.

I can see 5 on the floor (it really is reducing!) and I think there are three or four mini-kits left over from my Bellaboo days. So the overall kit usage is getting better as I really work through what I have and there are no new kits coming through the door. Although I really hope to be able to subscribe to one again sometime in the future.

I made a total of 6 layouts from this kit which is 6 more than I probably would have made without it! My kit was filled with some really old stuff and to see it being used up felt really good. In April, I might try to whip up a card or two as well before I put it all away.

And the verdict? This is a great incentive to shop your stash and then use it! The mini challenges were great and really got me moving. And there are some wonderful fellow forgers out there which was really inspirational. Count me in for the next kit.

PS. Don't forget to check out my post (Help Me Celebrate!) to share what cheers you up and to be entered into my mini-prize draw to celebrate 300 blog posts! It would be lovely to hear from you!

I want to make the draw at the weekend so there's still a few days - it's been lovely to hear from you and to hear what cheers you up. I am still feeling under the weather and have now lost my voice :-( so you've been helping me feel a bit better. 

Keep it coming!

Going Green for Christmas

Well, it's Wednesday which tends to mean it's my day to post my Jingle Belles Christmas card.


Week 13 is all about "The Holly and The Ivy".  To incorporate holiday foliage onto our cards - holly, ivy, mistletoe or even poinsettias - anything considered leaves and not flowers.


Each week the first thing I do is to have a rummage through my overflowing Christmas drawer for anything which might fit the challenge. This week, I was surprised to find loads of bits and pieces I could use and ended up over-achieving (again) and making four cards! Yes, I surprise myself sometimes!


Two were identical so here are the three:

Ok, so this is my least favourite and also the one I did two of, but I liked extending the cut-out off the card.

I have been enjoying just delving into my scraps bag and mixing up patterns and manufacturers. 

I love CC - this is just so pretty! 

So another set of cards sitting pretty in my drawer. 

 Thanks for looking and what's your pile of cards looking like? So great isn't it? Thanks Jingle Belles!

PS. Don't forget to check out my post (Help Me Celebrate!) to share what cheers you up and to be entered into my mini-prize draw to celebrate 300 blog posts! It would be lovely to hear from you!


I intend to make the draw at the weekend so there's still a few days - the more the merrier!

Mini-challenge - You've Been Framed

The Counterfeit Kit Challenge site is proving so much fun this month. Maybe it's because it's following on from LOAD last month and I am still on a challenge kick, but I have really loved diving in to the challenges as they come up.

The kit is still going strong and I think I might have one more layout to make with it and then I will break out the bits back into my stash ready for next month.

The latest mini-challenge was to use a frame in your work somehow. Frame the photo, frame the journalling, frame an element, use a frame as a main design feature - whatever.

I had my hands on a bright blue sparkly bling frame from MM that came in a kit last year that I wanted to use, but it just didn't inspire me so back it went.

Then I looked at the papers I had in my kit and decided to go for a completely different direction by picking out the darker colours and using my woodgrain (which is BG is actually a dark grey rather than brown) as my main background. The other side of a bright orange was a black and white spot, and I had put in a couple of pieces of BG basics in cream and kraft which looked like it could all work.

But the photos proved a bit tricky for this darker idea. No jolly, kiddie photos or flowers or most general topics would look good based on a nearly black background.

Then I came across some architectural photos I had taken (or maybe Ted had) in Düsseldorf when we took Ted there for him to take pictures and inspiration for an architectural project he was working on for school.

In this part of town there are three totally funky buildings designed by Frank O. Gehry and the metal covered one is just so great that I thought I would use those. Limited journalling, just giving the architect's name and where they are was all it needed.

As for my frame, I tried to get a bit funky myself and create an odd shaped frame to mirror the curves of the building and used it as a base for my title.

I just adore the lines of this building. 

I am really pleased with myself for getting this totally different design out of my kit which is so predominantly full of nature's colours. (I needed to add in the alphas and the ribbon). The challenge really got me thinking and it forced me to do something I wouldn't normally. I love it!

Do you like to be pushed outside the box?


PS. Don't forget to check out my previous post (Help Me Celebrate!) to share what cheers you up and to be entered into my mini-prize draw to celebrate 300 blog posts! It would be lovely to hear from you!

Help Me Celebrate!

First things first...

I have been such a creative bunny recently. Joining in on challenges, making cards, scrapping lots, catching up with missed assignments from past classes. And of course there is the reading. That could be considered creative if you stretch the meaning a bit :-)

And last week I ventured out into the world of other crafty people, to my local craft trade fair Creativa. I don't have a very local LSS so once a year, I brave the crowds to this fair and when I say crowds, I mean it. I am always surprised by just how many people are there even on workday afternoons.

It's a huge fair covering everything from scrapbooking to card making, from serviette technique (!?) to painting, from patchwork to doll making, and everything in between. The good, the bad and the downright bizarre!

Quilting seemed to be a main topic this year and a patchwork quilt in the colours of a local, rather passionate football club caught my eye (for good or bad, I'm not quite sure!):

Then there was the artistic display made entirely of paper (I think these were made of some sort of mushed up paper pulp):

Don't ask me what these insect looking wall things were supposed to be - I suspect they might have had lights inside but I don't think I will be rushing to get them on my wall. They remind me too much of some creepy crawly horror movie!

Mmmm? Really not sure about this.  Environmentally friendly, it might be. But it's a bit creepy!

And Easter was definitely in the air with so many bunnies and eggs and everything you need to make your own Easter decorations:

Even though the show itself seemed to be bigger than last year and there seemed to be more people there, I was a bit disappointed at the scrapbooking stands. Not as many real scrapbook stores represented and then the range of products was quite limited. Lots of really old products mainly reduced, much of which I already had and have even been purging from my supplies recently, and the new stuff was mostly Prima and Tim Holtz. No BG Luscious, no Echo Park, not even much American Crafts.

I was a bit disappointed. Not disappointed enough to have saved my money mind you!

I still managed to come home with a bad chock full of scrumptious supplies that cost waaaay toooo much!

I concentrated on embellishments as I have so much paper already and stocked up on lots and lots of Prima flowers, some bling and then other interesting bits and pieces I saw along the way. Of course, I got home and thought that I should have taken the plunge and got X or Y or why didn't I get two Z. But on the whole, I am really pleased with what I got. I picked up just a few sheets of paper (MME Stella & Rose) and a few alphas including 4 packs of Thickers but the rest is all embellishments. Pretty stuff!

Every year I come home vowing not to go again next year but with the lack of a good local shop, I find myself drawn to it each year again! And it's always fun to see some of the "interesting" hobbies that are out there.


Anyway, onto the celebrate mentioned in my blog post title.

This blog post is my 300th!!!!

I first started the blog back in 2006 so that means I'm obviously not posting often enough, but 300 sounds like quite a big number to me!

And it so happens that this weekend is the weekend of a retreat that I should have been at but which I needed to cancel. So I'm sitting here, nursing an icky cold but needing to do something to cheer me up.

So, in celebration of 300 blog posts, I'm going to do a little giveaway.

I have a little pile of goodies here (some Graphic 45 Le' Romantique papers and some La Blanche fairy rub ons) which I will be adding to with some bits and pieces that I round up from my room and I would love to share them with one of you.

To be entered into my first ever draw, just leave me a comment telling me something that cheers you up!

I'll pick a winner next weekend.

More counterfeit layouts...

My counterfeit kit is getting lots of use and I'm loving the challenge of using it for totally different styles of layouts and trying to find ways to combine some of the really old products I put into my kit with the newer stuff. Oh, yes, and then there's the challenge of creating titles with alpha sets which are already half depleted :-).

All in all, enough to get the old grey matter churning!

Layout #3 uses up lots of MME scraps, a really old 7Gypsies journalling tag and just two of the hundreds of photos I have from our golfing holiday in the Austrian Alps.

I am still unsure really how to tackle holiday photos. I don't want to produce pages and pages of layouts for each holiday (there goes me making it sound like we have holidays all the time!), so what's to be done? What I tend to do at the moment is just pick out photos that say something particular about the holiday and then move on like that - nothing matching, nothing very coherent and not an awful lot of detail. I'd be interested to know what anyone else does. 

Not a favourite layout, but overall, it's ok.

Another great thing that they offer on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge site is resources for printables and tutorials. I had some time on my hands and checked some of them out. This month's printables were based around bees because the original SC kit had a sweet little bee stamp in it. I liked a couple of the downloads and decided to print out some on transparency to cut out, and a little label type thing on photo paper. 

When I came across these gorgeous photos of sweet Isabella pottering in the garden, the little bees found a happy home!

This layout took me forever as I had the bright idea to do some stitching - wow, that adds hours on, I can tell you! But I wanted to try out making some bee flight lines to add some texture and interest so ploughed through. I really must get my sewing machine repaired - I want to do more sewing. It may have taken ages, but I enjoyed the process and the outcome.

I also followed up on some of the tutorials and was especially interested in the flowers. I love to add flowers to my layouts but even though Prima are gorgeous, they can hit the wallet a bit hard so some home-made flowers could be interesting. I liked the 5 petal flowers I saw on Madmin.com (link to tutorial here) and decided to try them for myself. Of course, I made it difficult by using some rather small squares of hessian which frayed horribly, but overall, I like the results and if I spent a bit more time and effort, I think this technique makes gorgeous flowers. 

Do you have a favourite home-made flower technique to share? 

This may not be a favourite layout, but it uses up scraps of paper, a super old label, one of the millions of paper flowers I have hanging around, some buttons and embellishments, and the background PP is really old - probably 4 years. So all in all, a very resource-full layout. 

And just one more

This is it. Really. Honestly. I mean it. No more. Just this last one. Promise.

Personally, I blame S.

She always seems to track down the funnest (not a word I think!) challenges and then, the cheek of it, she posts about it and joins in on all the fun. Without thinking about the consequences... Of me reading it and wanting to join in... What a nerve! :-)

Well, here's another one for me.... Another one and it has to be the last one... No really!

So S was blogging about a reading challenge she had come across via a new visitor to her blog who in turn had heard bout it on the blog Callapidder Days. Confused? You will be! (name that TV show!)

But on a serious note, I love reading and just don't do enough of it these days. I've got really lazy recently and hardly ever pick up a book which is such a shame. But every now and again, I get a bee in my bonnet and grab a book off the shelf (one of the MANY I have but haven't read... ) and get going. When I travel back to the UK I always stock up on chick lit at the airport and get through them so quickly. But the ones on my shelves are a bit more meaty. And it's wicked to have them sitting there unloved (bit like my stash!) so this is an ideal challenge for me.

It's supposed to be a relaxed challenge - make it up for yourself kind of thing so you choose how many books you want to commit to, you post about it, read them and post about them at the end. Easy, huh?

I already had a small pile of books on my bedside table so that was a good start and then I added a couple more to the list to spice it up a bit. Or not, depending on your taste in books!

My pile of  books looks like this:

The Heart of the Antarctic - Ernest Shackleton
The legendary Antarctic explorer is such an interesting story with the loss of his ship to the powerful grip of the southern ocean and yet managing to survive and lead his crew to safety across the ice. It's a story that's fascinated me for a long time and at last I am determined to read the book now.
The Endurance - Caroline Alexander
A gorgeous hard-backed book full of previously unpublished, stunning photography of the expedition by Frank Hurley. Another long timer on my shelf that needs to see the light of day.
The Romance of the Book - edited by Marshall Brooks
A collection of essays and excerpts about the book. This and the next book were both bought when I was writing my MBA dissertation back in 1998 and have been scanned but not read. All about reading and books  and the passion that brings out in people. Looking forward to getting to these books without the urgency of research!
A Passion for Books - edited by Dale Salwak
Another book in the same genre as the last. On the dust jacket it says that it's a celebration of reading as well as a defense against the feeling that the electronic world is going to kill the book. Such an interesting idea. My kind of topic.
The Angel's Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
I know nothing about this book. I received it from Dad for my birthday in 2009 so it's way overdue a reading. I have seen it on Amazon with a gazillion good reviews so I think once I get past the first couple of pages, I will love it. Set in Spain at the turn of the last century (I think) which is something that is new for me so another interest factor. Looking forward to getting into this one.
Harmony - A New Way of Looking at Our World - HRH The Prince of Wales, Tony Juniper and Ian Skelly
Definitely not one for everyone, depending on where you sit on the Prince Charles side of things. But I have his first book which is all about his dislike of modern architecture or rather his love of classic design and enjoyed it a lot. This one was bought for me by mum for last year's birthday - it was a case of "I saw this and thought of you" for mum when she first saw it! I loved it. It was a perfect present. It appears to be a philosophical look at the problems with the environment and what we should be thinking about to move to a sustainable life on Earth. Could be heavy but it's one that I want to take my time on. Wish me luck!
Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
On the pile of books in the photo, this is the looking very sorry for itself book at the top. I scrapped about my love of this book (and Rhett) during LOAD which prompted me to pick it up and start reading it again. I think it must be almost 20 years since the last time. It has already gotten under my skin and I have found myself crying several times and sighing with frustration with Scarlet more than once. I love this book. The historical detail is incredible although of course, I have no idea as to its accuracy. It's a monster book (799 pages) and I adore each and every word. Still ever so slightly in love with Rhett.

Two works of fiction, 5 non-fiction. A couple of classics. One or two that are a little "out there". From the south pole through the southern states, on to the south of Europe. From exploration to quiet contemplation taking in war and saving the environment along the way. I'm excited to read these books which have been waiting for me for a long time - some are more than 10 years brand new!

There you go. A list that might say something about me. You tell me!

But definitely the last new challenge I am going to take on.... promise!

Stash finding a happy home - Jingle Belles #12

This week's challenge is courtesy of guest star Allison Fillo (blogging here) and she gave us this gorgeous sketch to use.

The first thing that I noticed was that great stack of layered items over on the right which really appealed to me, and seems to be something that is very effective while remaining simple.

When I looked through my papers and Christmas bits, I found a pile of themed embellishments. This is just the kind of thing I am looking to use up on my cards as I don't really use these types of items on my layouts and they are not really my style any more. But they are still cute which makes them perfect on cards - maybe these will go to the younger members of the family.

I decided to just go for it and make up 5 cards at once - all following the same design and using up these Doodlebug papers, stickers and jellies as well as a few other pieces in the same colour scheme. 

Simple, quick and done! Can't get better than that.

It makes me happy to see this type of product being used up and stops the guilt of having stuff that is just sitting there. 

One of these weeks I am going to go for something über-elegant, á la Deb but for now, happy to see my pile of cards growing. 

Etsy challenge - Counterfeit Kit Club

I've been really enjoying my March Counterfeit kit, although sometimes I think I played it really a bit too safe, filling it with colours and textures that are so me. I love the challenge of trying to use stuff that is not so very comfortable! So, it's great that over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge site, prompts are offered a couple of times a month to get the creative inspiration juices flowing.

Last Sunday, the challenge was to go to Etsy and just find inspiration from browsing through some pages. It reminded me a lot of the prompts from LOAD last month, so I combined this prompt with the eBay one from LOAD and entered my name into the search field on Etsy and then looked through the results.

I was so impressed at the gorgeous items for sale and was almost spoilt for choice for ideas to use on my layout.

This beautiful iPad cover caught my eye quite quickly as the Amy Butler fabric is gorgeous and the lines of the cover are just great. I really liked the flap with the button and decided that I would take this element onto my layout. Looking at it now, I can see another layout featuring the vertical lines (maybe stitching) with the circular elements on top. Maybe I will get around to another one with this idea...

Photo from Etsy - lisaroyhandbags

I decided to make two tags with tabs around a central button and have that as the main embellishment feature of my layout.

As usual at the moment, I just grabbed some photos and made it work together with the papers. It's interesting that most of the time I actually start designing the page without any idea of which photos I'm going to use or the story I want to tell. I sort out the papers and start placing them down before I go looking for the photos. I really think this is something positive to have come out of LOAD. I've stopped double guessing myself and just go with the flow.

I think I can also think that this is all part of my OLW - Release.

And that all reminds me of an old Paperclipping Round Table podcast I was listening to the other day (from way back at the beginning of the show) where they were talking about process. Maybe that is a post for another day, because I think my process changes from one day to the next! What about you?

Catching up - yet again

As you know, I am a bit of a class junky. Love them, love learning, love being part of the class community, love trying out new things.

Of course, the problem is that I sign up for too many and then don't manage to do some/any of the assignments. But I do most of my classes over at BPC and they offer lifetime access so even if I don't keep up while the class is happening, I can access the classroom as and when I want and try to finish up.

I think I could do nothing but class assignments from previous classes for the next two years if I did that for all that I've missed (!) but every now and again, I get a bee in my bonnet to finish up a particular class. Sometimes it's even a class that I totally adored and I can't even tell you why I didn't keep up.

One such class was "Colour! or is it Color?" by Nic H. I loved her first class, fell in love with this colour class but lost my momentum. Now is the time to make amends! I'm feeling inspired and productive at the moment so I fished out the handouts and have been making some progress.

Actually, this first layout was completed back in January but I haven't shared it here. I think you can see that the colour for this week was green. Lots of layers, lots of distressing, three photos (got to love that multi-photo design), love of dimension and lots and lots of handmade leaves! I love this layout, and I love this little girl. Isn't she gorgeous?

And just one more for today by sharing this layout for the colour blue. I followed the design quite closely, even choosing the same papers as Nic H which is unusual for me. But something I realised when I was looking through my stash, I have very few blue papers - or at least very few that would have worked on a layout like this. I liked the combination of the blue with the orange and these papers from BG's Marrakech hadn't yet been broken into so this was a good opportunity.

It's a great design for a series of 5 photos that are connected, giving lots of space for journalling as well as plenty of room for lots of embellishing. It could be adapted for a single page layout, easily turned 90° or adapted in many different ways. It's a design I will be coming back to again in the future as I really enjoyed the ease of this construction.

Have you got classes lurking in the background that are calling you to get them finished? Try getting one out and trying to get just one missed assignment done! I promise you, it will feel great to get it done. You never know, it might spur you on to get the whole class finished!