Nutcracker Pillow boxes

My entire house looks like an elf exploded at the moment.  Here are some holiday treats that I will be giving away tomorrow at the Crafty Cafe.  They were made with Graphic45 paper from ages ago that I only just now managed to use... I used 6x6 squares and just followed the instructions on the WRMK pillow box punch board, filled with chocolates, added a ribbon and done!  I hope the Crafty ladies like them.

Mummy and Vixie Crafting

This year,  I thought we would progress from simpler cards to more assembly type ones, so I've taught Victoria 3D decoupage.  I got her a pack of Frozen decoupage from The Range.  It's die-cut so there's no fussy cutting and she is learning how to cut down the foam tape to the right sizes for the sometimes fiddly shapes involved.

Today she did these two characters and then chose dies to place them onto and background paper.

She's not quite strong enough to crank the dies through on the Cuttlebug all by herself yet, but she's nearly there.

The decoupage is pretty slow going... I hope she gets enough done to give to all her friends!

Harry's!

Harry's... Not Just Another Restaurant!  I had so many stories and memories of Harry's that I couldn't even fit them all on the page.  I didn't have room for embellishments or anything, I just had to write, write, write!  I was even removing pieces of photos that I didn't desperately need, just so I could fit another paragraph in!

This page has value, even if it's not really all that visually pleasing.  For me, the part of scrapbooking that made me start doing it was the ability to put the stories next to the photos.  I wasn't particularly interested in the artsy stuff at first.  I like it now, when there's room in the design to have it there, but for me, the priority is photos, stories, safe materials, embellishment.  If I didn't have room or time for that last one, it just has to go.

I love all aspects of scrapbooking now but the stories and photos together are what makes it satisfying for me.  So that's another story told.  What's next?

Red Barn Coffee

I found myself at a crop with a brand-new collection pack of Papermania (not sure what it's called) and it had a bunch of things that I thought I'd try using.  I like big flowers, but usually I only use one on a layout, surrounded by smaller ones.  This time, I lined up some coffee-coloured ones along the bottom of the page, and used baker's twine in a spiral glued to the middle of each flower.  I didn't have anything else with me that would make nice flower centres, but I'm pleased with the effect that this twisted string gave when I laid it in a spiral in a puddle of glue.  It's a little bit trippy, especially under flourescent bulbs, but I'm sure it'll be ok when it is at home in the album.  The title is stamped with a Papermania alphabet set and the star in the circles is a Banana Frog stamp.  I think the brackets and journaling stamp (laid top-and-tail fashion to make a box) is Bo Bunny.  The ink is Memento.  The patterned paper is from the same set as the flowers and string, and you can find me using this set in a previous entry called Minnie Me.

Repetitive Scrapbook Pages?

What do you do when you went to, say, a parade for example, and you got a whole bunch of shots of loads and loads of groups?  It's kind of nice to have, but I look at the stack of photos and think, "I don't know how long I can look at these... let's just get through this, get it in the album, and then we can flip through it as often as we want!

My solution is to keep it simple, and create a feeling of continuity in the pages.  As such, I am not going to show you all of my parade photos here, but this one page is an example of how I made all the others.  Blue scalloped border on the top, red scalloped border on the bottom, white background, and titles all cut in the same font alternating colours per page.  Now I can keep them but I didn't spend ages making separate designs for the same subject.  It's what I like to call a "chapter" in a scrapbook.  Ideally, you start it with a right hand side title page, then do doubles and end with a right hand side page.  I'm not sure what I ended up with!  But parity is everything when putting the album together.  I'll find out sooner or later!!!

As I write this, the pages are still in boxes until I can confirm their planned order looking at my detailed notes on the subject... which are in a pile somewhere...

Pizzeria Uno

Quick one, just keeping it simple as always... using Basic Grey monograms and my handy black pen, stamps and very little else...

Last day of Blogtober!!!

It's the last day of Blogtober and I don't really have anything Halloweeny to share.  Last year, I entirely forgot about Halloween and I shut all the lights off and pretended not to be home.  Not this year though!  I have the sweets and a cute bucket for them and a blinky light headband for my hair and a sign and decoration and bunting.  It's happening here this year.  But no photo yet.

Instead, here's a picture of something Autumn-y.  We have actually had colours on our leaves this year!  Some of the trees actually looked like they were about to burst into flame.  I don't notice that very much around here, but I was born and raised in New England, and they get the most vivid Autumn colours when the leaves change.  So much so that they actually run coach tours around the most wooded roads so people can enjoy all the oranges, reds, yellows and what green is left.

And that's the end of October!  Now focus descends upon the C-word.  Oh dear.... Christmas is upon us. Many crafters have already been working on... that... for months.  I started one project in June, so I can't really comment... but I do not talk about it until November if I can help it.

Happy Halloween!

Three Happy Scrappers

The three of us pictured here will be posting our version of this photo in a scrapbook page today!!  So feel free to compare notes and visit Wendy and Karen to see theirs.
We are often referred to by Wendy's husband as "The Three Musketeers." Our Musketeer names, L to R, are Aroma-miss (Karen likes nice perfume), All-Those (Wendy is a collector who has to have the ink in every colour available, and that goes for embossing powders, markers, you name it!) and Portly-- because of my size and because I couldn't think of anything else to be a play on words with Porthos. :)

In doing the journaling for this page, I found out that we have been crafting together for over ten years!!!  Where does the time go?

Die cut Inlay Tutorial

Buckle up, this is going to be a long one.

Wendy had asked me to choose some challenges for her from her Pinterest boards, and while I was there I found a pin where someone had cut out a spray of leaves out of a dark brown piece of paper and another piece that had been streaked with green and autumn colours before being cut in the exact same way.  The streaked leaves were inlaid onto the negative cut in the brown and the result was stunning.

Knowing me and my penchant for using more intricate designs with teeny tiny pieces, I took it upon myself to extend the challenge to using a specific die- a border one from Memory Box that I knew we both had.

When trying to decide which patterned papers to use, I came upon something I had kept with a view to using one day.  They were the front sheets from Basic Grey collection packs.  They had on them small scaled-down samples of the patterns included in each set.  These designs were perfect for cutting into the miniscule size I required!

The first thing I did was to cut down the sample pieces so that they would run through the machine.  I will be cutting the dark brown cardstock and the patterned paper with the same die.

Here's the results of cutting the dark brown.  These will be the frame into which I will inlay the patterned pieces.

Next was the culling.  Due to the layout of the paper I was using for the patterned pieces, some had white borders going through them, so I got rid of the ones on the right.  The left-hand ones were the keepers.  I repeated this process with every sheet and collected all the keepers into a little plastic storage container.   Yes, I also kept the little brown pieces because you never know when they will come in handy!

These leftovers looked interesting too so I kept them.  I have since used a few of them on a multimedia canvas.  I'll post that one soon!

I worked out very late in the game that I would avoid most of the rejects if I laid out the die this way rather than across many colours at a time.  Ah well, a lesson for later...

And the finished product!!  I used a pick-up tool and a fine nib glue for this and it came together quite quickly and easily and it was fun too.  I will be using this technique again because it was really therapeutic... and also I have a ton of those little patterned bits left!!  Waste not, want not.

There's more but the complete design is going to wait until tomorrow, when Wendy, Karen and I will be posting scrapbook pages we made using the same photo.   So stay tuned!!

Old School

Sorry about the lighting on this one... the editing didn't quite come out as I planned.

Stamps and a die cut title and that's about it for this one... more Brenda Pinnick paper.  These are pictures of my old elementary school in Westborough, Massachusetts.  The three smaller photos are of the front, and the larger one is of a jungle gym (UK: Climbing Frame) that my friend Nikki and I used to sit at the top of... and just talk or sing or whatever until the bell rang to go back in.

It was very strange to stand next to that now, fully grown, and watch my daughter climb on it.  Honestly, I'm surprised it's still there.  This one was called the Spider because there was a larger one nearby that we called the Spider Web.  Not because it looks in any way like a spider.

Vixie's Cut and Style

I've been posting from my phone almost exclusively this month. As a result I've had to save the double layouts for the end.  Now I have transferred the photos and can try my best to knit the two photos together to get an idea of the full layout.

I've really been keeping it simple lately.  There's nothing wrong with that, especially when you're as "behind" as I am.  This time I used my stamps, a die-cut or ten and two matching pieces of patterned paper for the background.  This one was from a very large pad of Brenda Pinnick paper I got years ago from QVC.  I love the colours and patterns but there's only so many times they can feature in a scrapbook!  200 sheets was too many.

Touch Screen Drinks Machine

Please excuse the parallax distortion.  I swear the scraps are put on straight!!

This one needed to be mainly black, white and red due to the coca cola theme.  I borrowed some black and grey patterned paper from a fellow cropper and used up the very end of my red scraps for this layout. 

One day I'll be organised and then watch what I can do!!!!

Minnie Me

The most major craft purchase I adequate this year was a complete set of 36 memento dewdrop ink pads.  I have been lucky enough to find good enough matches for my scrapbook papers, so I have been using them to decorate the pages.  This is a similar scheme to the Subway page I shared ages ago.

I have really been bad this week at blogging daily so I will start again now!! Final week!

You have been warned!

This page is a classic "me" page.  Die cut title, drawn around in black pen because it got lost on the paper.  Punch Around The Page on the photo,  some die cut floral frippery and voila!

The photo,  in case it isn't showing up, is a sandwich board outside a gym and it says:

Spring Has Sprung
The grass is Riz
Do you know where your
Swimsuit is?

Loved it!  Absolutely had to be scrapped.

Hair-did!

Letting the paper and stamps do the work again... this time in lime green!  I kept this one to one side for months because I thought it wasn't finished...  then I added the die cut floral border on the bottom.  I'm still not convinced, but at least it looks a bit fancier.

Dunkin Donuts

Dunkin Donuts is a New England staple.  I used to work there too... this particular branch used to be a pool hall and before that it was the post office!  How things change. 

Another of my quick style pages - a couple of matted photos, background paper from Basic Grey and a die cut title.  It never fails.

The mirror image...

This is the one I made to go over the page from yesterday's page.  It's very similar.  Brenda Pinnick background paper, matted onto card, two matted photos and two journalist spots.  Presto.

So simple!

This page takes full advantage of a single sheet of patterned paper with a banded design that makes it look like I did something.  Photos, mats, journalling spaces..  that's it!  I even made another one that's nearly a mirror image of that to go on the opposite side.  You'll see that tomorrow. 

Sketchy page

This one was based on a sketch I saw... er,  somewhere.   It's not exactly the sketch anyway,  even if you could see it.  I changed the shapes involved for a start.  I used some Papermania 6x6 paper for the shapes and good old pen for the title... I think that's all there is... a quick one but I love it.

Here Come the Girls

This is a great photo.  My mom picked me and Vix up after Rose's wedding and my three Aunties, Iris,  Holly and Sharlene, and Nana Harriet got to see her for the first time in probably 30 or more years.  There was much hugging and catching up.  Here we all are outside the hotel.

I always see photos of scrapbook pages where the creator has really pushed the boat out and made a masterpiece.  I wanted to do this with this photo but I was so under prepared (This one also from the same crop as the others) that all I could muster was this.  I like it though.  It's enough I think.

Are you enjoying Blogtober?  We're nearly halfway and I have missed one day only!  That's not bad going as I am blogging 'live' every day and not scheduling posts.  So a pat on the back for me!  Yay me!

Feline interloper!

A very stern and a teensy bit sleepy looking Tiggy is monitoring my progress on the crochet throw.  I have 12 rows to do horizontally.  I have gone up the middle to confirm the spacing of the rows and now I'm just working left and right of that line.  Three rows complete, 4th in progress... when the cat allows!

Plain... but fancy.

This is another of my efforts from the crop for which I packed abysmally.  Patterned paper was almost nonexistent, but I did have plenty of cardstock in lots of colours... I still had to dip into the crop shop for some better colours to tone in with the pictures but I got there in the end.  Die cuts to the rescue!! I slathered them on all over the page, mostly behind photos.  I like it though... it has a quirky but classic look, which describes my Nana perfectly.  

A late one!

Another page done with Basic Grey stickers, a few scraps and some stamps.  This was my cousin's birthday party that she had on the eve of her wedding at the hotel where we were all staying.  I enjoyed this evening, mostly because of the great conversation I had with my Aunt Iris.  It was great to be with this side of my family after almost 20 years apart.

Vixie Knows how to Party!

Just a quick scrapbook page whipped together with Basic Grey stickers... I was at a crop with a box of what I thought would be sufficient patterned paper for the photos I'd brought.  I got stuck in and realised I'd brought the wrong box!  Here's one of the things I made whilst making do.

Here is the obligatory Blogtober link.... :)  it's never too late to join in!

Sneaky peek

This is what I spent the majority of this past weekend making.  It's a technique that I tried for the first time on a scrapbook page, the rest of which will be shown at the end of the month. 

I plan to do a tutorial vid on YouTube as well, or at least a tutorial Web page or a more detailed blog post..  but that will be later.

How's your Blogtober going? Do you want to come in late?  We don't mind!  Add your blog address to the linky here.

Fifth card...

I made one more card this past weekend,  and here it is.  Another herringbone - style paper quilt background used up, this time I used a Tonic Studios Lattice Square die set with the stamped image fussy - cut and put on top, as I knew it would overextend the border of the solid panel in the middle.

One more hand - cut sentiment banner adds the finishing touch to this one.

My thoughts are that these cards are quite plain and uninteresting compared to the cards I've seen in shops and on Pinterest and other blogs.  I want so much to create those cards with the "Wow!" factor... but I suppose that would be for when I'm home with all my stash to hand,  not just the capsule kits I pack in my weekend bag.

This is part of Blogtober 2015.  To join in, either as a reader or a contributor, check out this post.  Either click on the links or add your own, or both!

Two more cards

Remember the paper quilted backgrounds I made?  No?  I don't think I blogged them.  I did do a Youtube Video though.

My channel is called Happy Accident Studios.  The logo is a pink handprint.  Go find it if you want to see how the backgrounds were made.

For the cards, I just die cut a panel for a stamped image and hand cut ribbon shaped sentiments..  a simple formula really.  I enjoyed playing with my stamps and dies though.  Long may it continue!

It's blogtober 2015!  If you want to join in, check out the links here.

A couple of cards

Ages ago, I made some card backgrounds out of scraps.  This always happens: I make a job lot of backgrounds and forget about them.  Then I make a job lot of die cuts and forget about them.  Then I make a job lot of stamped motifs and forget about them!  Then I remember them all and try to combine them.  I fail miserably.

So I decided to remember the backgrounds I made ages ago and make something that will actually match to go on them.  Here are my first two efforts.

Coffee and Holly Hobbie were the stamps I used for these and a myriad of die cut pieces from mainly Spellbinders and Memory Box.

I made these on Saturday when I was at Wendy's.  Check out what she was up to here.

Like Wendy and a few other friends, I am taking part in Blogtober 2015.  To join, try to post every day in October and add your blog to the linky here.

See you tomorrow!

Finished? Not yet!

This is the photo from the front of the pattern book. I'm nearly finished making this throw and we shall see if it looks like the picture...

Watching you...

Don't they look like eyes?

These are the peacock feather motifs for the throw I posted yesterday.  There's 102 of them!  I need to sew them on now... :)  There's a job right there...

Are you blogging as part of Blogtober 2015?  Do you want to?  Add your blog URL to the linky  in Karen's blog post!

http://kkfantasticplace.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/blogtober-2015.html

(I'm posting from my phone and for some reason I can't link from a saved post... you can copy and paste the link above or click the link from my previous post...)

Peacock Throw!

This is a small portion of the base throw onto which I will sew 102 peacock feather motifs.

I have chronicled the making of these motifs on my Facebook page,  Happy Accident Studios.  For the sake of the blog, I will use some of the photos in future posts. 

This pattern has a four - row repeat consisting of a 9dc shell pattern followed by a 9dc decrease offset halfway between , a shell pattern to match up with the decrease and then another decrease offset to match up with the first row pattern.  The result is circles in dc. (For UK crocheters, just replace dc with tr and you too will understand!) 

I am taking part in Blogtober 2015.  To see the others involved, go to Karen's blog.

October is BLOGtober!!!

Hi everyone,

Yes, you see correctly.  I haven't blogged since May-ish.  I thought I would restart today with Blogtober, brought to you by Karen.  Head on over there if you'd like to take part!

I was asked to make the graphic for this year, so I think it's only fitting that my first post be about that:

Karen asked me for something arty, so I thought the best thing was to use one of my recent favourite art journal pages.  I took a quick photo of the page using my laptop camera and loaded it into Paint.net, added text and voila!!

The art journal page?  That's something different!  I started by using a palette knife to spread some dried-up and partly reconstituted acrylic paint through a stencil, much like a texture paste.  I let this dry, then diluted some Brusho and brushed that on, mopping up quickly as I did so with a paper towel.   This kept the paint pretty much as it was originally.  I let that dry and then tore up some decorative tissue paper and put a few bits on that using Golden gel medium.  It is a very textured page and I don't think I'll be writing on it!!  I'm glad it came into its own as a basis for this graphic though.

Happy Blogtober, everyone!!!

Backstitch done!

I never thought I'd  see the day.  The backstitch is finished on my bird cross stitch!  All that remains is to put on any french knots I may have missed and detach it from the frame.  I am so glad it's over!!!  Full pic when I've detached it.

UFO: That Bird Cross Stitch.

I have forgotten how long I have been working on this but I think it was before my children were born.  I bought this to pass the time when I was pregnant with my now 12 year old son. 

Cross stitch is fun,  a cross between embroidery and paint by number, and is a good use of short term memory.  I suffer from focal migraines so I can't do much of it for very long.  I put this down for a long time because I got very caught up in my Papercrafting.   That's got a lot less fine detail to worry about and I can play longer. :)

My seven year old daughter asked to learn how to cross stitch and I bought her a little cupcake kit from Hobbycraft.  I brought this project out to show her.  I'd really like to put this one to bed for good so I'm going to try to finish it in the next couple of days.  All that's left is the back stitch so it shouldn't take too long.  Here's hoping...

Crafting in the car: Barry box

My Blogger app gives me no control over photo placement.  It's at the bottom of the entry so go have a look and come back.

I'll wait.

Okay?  No comments from the peanut gallery.  Those are Barry's legs.  LEGS.
This is a box from an online makeup shop that I have re purposed for yarn storage and dispensing expressly for making many Barrys.  I have decided that I want Barry bunting in my craft room,  so I will need to take this box with me so that every spare moment can result in an arm, a leg, a body or a head.  As you can see,  it fits quite nicely on my dashboard. 

WOYWW #303 - Hole in the chaos

Hello!  And hello especially to my fellow deskers!

For those of you who don't know the acronym in my title today, it means What's On your work desk Wednesday.  This is where I'm at today:

I spent some time tidying the desk up.  There are still piles here and there because I burst in today like a headless chicken looking for something.  Found it and left.  But before that it was looking pretty good.

There is actually work going on here... I started sticking a title down on Monday night and I walked away from it, not to return until now.  I'll be finishing it up soon.

Why is the scrapbook page upside down?

This title needed to be lined up with the top of the photo and it was too far to reach and still be accurate.  So I turned it over and I'm laying the rest of it down now, all in reverse.  You'll see the finished article soon enough if you read this blog on days other than Wednesday.  :)

Want to participate in WOYWW?  Want to snoop through some other peoples' desks?  Go here:

http://stamping-ground.blogspot.co.uk

If you've written a post about your desk along with a photo, copy the link to your clipboard beforehand.  Then you can paste it into Mr. Linky and join in with us!!

Happy Wednesday!

Cameron's Sports Day 2012

I made two identical pages like this, one for Cameron's school album and one for the family album.  Not a whole lot to say about this one except that it's some shade of red Bazzill, with blue mats punched in this cool border, another one I borrowed from Wendy at the same time as I borrowed the one I used on Victoria's Sports Day 2012 pages.  This punch makes the edge look like it was paper-pierced and the little tiny blue dots all over the table when I was finished were amazing. :)  Also, it left these little moustache shapes and I glued one of them to my face and took a selfie.  I don't know exactly where that is, but I think Facebook might be where to look.... if you're that bothered...

Anyway, voila and all that.  More scrapbooking to come soon.

Me on a Monday

It was a Crafty Delivery Saturday followed by a Surprising the kids Sunday kind of a weekend.

I took Wendy's craft tote over to her place on Saturday and we got a great deal of crafting and "buy it try it" done.

The first photo is of two of the whopping six cards I made by patching together some scraps,  and what was left after first  two.  I still had enough to make a seventh but it would have been fiddly and probably not so nice looking so I put the leftovers in the bin.

Me on Monday?

Slow start to the week because I can.  Eggs Benedict with a friend.  A walk around Rochester in the sun.  A quick shopping trip and lunch grabbed on the way to a meeting with a teacher, then a nearly completed Zentangle (sans shading) in the afternoon. 
That's the second photo.

And that's  Me on Monday.  Here's where I give a wave to Sian at:

http://fromhighinthesky.blogspot.co.uk

She is the original Me on a Monday and compiles a list of other Mondayers you can visit.  Happy Monday everyone!

Make Believe Show 2012

Victoria went to an acting, dancing, singing activity group called Make Believe when we lived in London.  She enjoyed it and made friends there.  At the end of the year they did a show in an off-west-end theatre with a semi-pro cast backing them up.

Victoria was in three numbers- A B C by Michael Jackson,  Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid and finally,  The Lion King.  For that last one, she decided that she'd rather watch the rest of the cast behind her so she sat down on the stage with her back to the audience!!

If I was a pushy stage mom I would have been fuming but you know what?  She was having a blast.  And that's what matters.  Make Believe is a fun place for kids to learn to sing, dance and act and actually enjoy doing it.  If you're a pushy stage mom and expect perfection from all the little ones sharing the stage with your star, I'm terribly sorry...

Vixie and her Mammy

Mammy is the name that we traditionally are calling our maternal grandmothers.  I was the first, because my Mammy had a nanny in the South of the USA and they called their nannies Mammy.  She loved her Mammy so much that she wanted to be called Mammy one day.

(Clarification for anyone who speaks with an Irish accent, in the USA, Mammy is pronounced the same way as Americans pronounce "Ma'am," which isn't very helpful unless you have heard that in a movie or some such... as Mammy and "ma'am-y" would sound the same in Irish too!!!)

If you recall the page entitled "My Grampa," It is made with basically the same stuff, just a bit more girly looking. :)

A Rainbow of Scrubs

A Rainbow of Scrubs.  It is what it says it is.  I just found it cool that you could buy scrubs from Wal-Mart in so many colours.  I made this a very basic page that I'm sure I have some sort of name for in my head but it doesn't translate into anything I can type.  Basically this kind of page is anchored either on the left or right with a piece of patterned paper and has a number of other layers, some torn, some punched, whatever, and then I put a smaller little cluster of strips up in the corner to echo the main layout.  I think I picked it up when I was doing Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party.  You will see a lot of this from me.  This time, I added a title cut from a Sizzlits set and a small filigree butterfly cut out of the same paper as the border punched layer of plain cardstock.  Other than choosing a solid background colour (I think this is Jacaranda by Bazzill) and matting the photo on white, that is absolutely it.

Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party had a lot of takeaway value for me, the most interesting part being the analysis of patterned papers and how to unify several patterns without making your eyes water.  I also love her Creative Stash Dive project, wihch combines several patterns and solids and using all of it up to the last possible scrap.  Great video which is included in the Pretty Paper Party class if you're interested.   Shimelle.com is the place to go if the class is still available.

Brusho Birthday Card

Ah, Brushos.  I have seen beautiful results but I am still a very young Jedi. I am not in control of their immense power... yet.

Here is a moody birthday card I created using one of my many experimental Brusho sheets.  I used a Tim Holtz stamp from the Birthday Blueprints set and applied liberal amounts of Stickles.