Farnborough Show Haul!

After a very lean month, I spent up in style at the Make It show in Farnborough.  I just about got all of it in the frame but it's all overlapping.  I will do a YouTube video at some point with all of it, but for now here is a summary: 

My first stop was Meiflower for a few reels of satin ribbon.  I have been using up quite a lot of it so I thought I would replenish stock.  I got four rolls: white, sage green, tan and a rose pink.

My husband advised me to keep an open mind unless I saw a demo that I liked and wouldn't you know it?  There was.  GlitzCraft has their own stencil paste and I saw the demo and loved it. I got their package deal which included 2 large pots of paste (I got silver and light green), 4 small pots of paste (I got pink blue green and gold), a spreading knife and seven of last year's stencils.  I also got 2 of this year's stencils.  I use stencils with many different products so they will go a long way.

My trip to the MDF Man wasn't as fruitfulness as planned because he has scaled back production of late to spend time with his new baby.  Too right!  But that means my remote control organiser and letter rack will have to wait.  I did find a ribbon rack though so I bought that and will be painting it today.  Great!

Next up was inkylicious. I found two of the three sets of 12 Memento dew drop pads I wanted but upon closer inspection, the set contents were a little different than the ones I found on Amazon which means I'll have to wait until the third set becomes available from Inkylicious.  I am very happy with the two sets I got but I am waiting for brights.  While there I also picked up a sanding block and some masking tape.

At craft Obsessions I picked up some sheets of Stick it adhesive backing for fiddly die cuts.  If I get on well with it I will buy it in bulk as it could quite quickly become a staple for me.   I also got some silver leafing flakes and a new scoochy sponge for my flitterglu set and two of the new Ken Oliver Click It ink pads in lamp black and walnut.

Onward to Stampasaurus where there was a large selection of.... more stencils!! I got six more.  Stencil count from this show stands at a massive 15!!

That was it for show purchases but I did also get a spritzer tool and Martha Stewart punch at Oyster Stamps on Friday, so they're in the picture too!

Thanks for sticking with me if you made it this far.  It's playtime now!!

WOYWW: Time warp!

This week's  WOYWW should probably be called WWOYWLW. Because instead of What's on your work desk Wednesday, it's  What Was On Your Work desk Last Wednesday!

I have been making a lot of papercraft projects which have resulted in lots of conveniently sized scraps for die cutting,  so I took out my little Sidekick and just cut a whole bunch of whatever.  My favourite are the little blue birdies.  I cut them out of scraps that were already scored and I thought I wouldn't be able to  cut anything out of them.  Luckily, the birdies  were small enough to fit between the score lines and rendered these scraps very useful indeed!

If you would like to join in with WOYWW,  go to http://stamping-ground.blogspot.co.uk and add your entry into the linky.  :)  Check out everyone else sharing their Wednesday scenes.

Tatting Impasse

I made a tatted bracelet from a pattern I saw on Pinterest this summer.  I knew I had the perfect ribbon to attach it to but I didn't know where it was.  Now I have finally got the ribbon and the bracelet in the same place and I don't know what to do with it.  I was originally going to weave the ribbon in and out of the sections, but the parity is wrong and the weave would look strange.  Plus, it would cover up half of my hard work!  I know beads come into it somewhere but I'm uncertain as to how to proceed at the moment.  So here it sits, pinned to the board, waiting for me to make up my mind.

At the Pub

I do like this style of page.  It's a similar style to the second one I made on the Saturday but with even more stamping on it.  I used strips of Basic Grey PB&J on plain white cardstock randomly stamped with script and crackles and flourishes around the edges.  This time, I used a chalk inkpad in Hint of Pesto.  I don't like to stamp with the spongy ink pads as they get ink everywhere, not just the part of the stamp that you want to touch the paper.  I do prefer a firmer pad and for that, I should be using dye pads not pigment or chalk.  I know my stuff... but it doesn't mean I've always got the right colour in the right type of ink.  So anyway... Here it is.  Finished off with a Bazzill cardstock mat in London Fog and some letter stickers.  Oh- and another round journal stamp from that set that I can't remember anything about.

Did I just end a blog entry in a preposition?  No.  Because this is the end.

Happy Boy

I think this Bazzill cardstock is Bamboo.  I can't remember which Basic Grey ranges I used for this one, but I'm sure one of them is from Oliver.  Possibly the chevron.  I think the only other paper there is one of those prints that is a stripe of each of the other patterns in the collection.  I used a strip of cardstock, punched with a scallop lace Fiskars border punch under the striped panel and I cut and punched a mat for the photo.  I stamped the title with an old alphabet set.... can't remember if it was Stamposaurus or something like that... Sir Stamp-a-Lot?  Not sure.  It's an early clear polymer stamp and it seems more robust than its newer counterparts.  Still a joy to use after many, many years.  There's also a round journalling stamp and I have no idea what the branding or anything is on it.  It's been ages since I opened that packet... all I can remember is that when I got it, it was on sale.  :)

Just Stickin' with Vix

Thank you Basic Grey for another page that I am happy with and shocked at how little time it took.  I used die-cut letters from two different paper ranges and a whole assortment of stickers from Lemonade and Sugar Rush.  This one took a bit longer but I think it was worth it.  I am still fairly new at the whole clustering thing and I'm not quite there yet... I'll just keep practicing!!!

Christmas Selfie

Sunday continued on and next up on my photo pile was this-- an insagram photo that somehow got cropped to 6x4 in the printing process.  Ah well... these things happen.  And when the photo shop gives you lemons... use lemonade cardstock!   Or was it chiffon.... I guess it doesn't matter.  This one used a sheet of Basic Grey paper as the background with a stamped cardstock frame for the picture and a stamped journaling block.  I also used two different fonts for the title and hand-scrawled the year.  Simple as.  I'll get fancy eventually.  You've been warned.

Sunday Scrapping

Yes, I know it's Thursday.  But here's a page I made on a Sunday.

It's that Bazzill Aqua again, this time for the front page of the Family Fun Day section of my scrapbook.  I wanted this one to be quick and simple and that's exactly what it was.  I just used some very appropriate stickers from the Basic Grey PB&J collection pack, a couple of photos and some scribbles, room for journaling and presto!  A page!

This was too easy.  But I keep trying to convince myself that just because it happened fast and looks simple doesn't mean it isn't a great page.  Who says I have to agonise over every little thing?  It's done and my family will love it and that's all that matters.   Well, that and I had a great time making it.  Obviously.

Victoria In Goal - an easy DLO

This is my first DLO (double layout) of the year and dead easy, thanks to Basic Grey PB&J.  I arranged this DLO on two sheets of Bazzill cardstock in Aqua.  I used the rows of bunting (Pennants, as they say in the USA) on the sides.  They're stickers and very forgiving when I needed to put my photos slightly under them.  Then I used the cardstock sticker letters for the title, and I added a couple of stamped stars.  There is room for journaling which I will add later once I figure out the flow of this set of pages.  This DLO is just part of what will be a series of pages on the Family Fun Day laid on by my husband's boss last summer.  I bought more Aqua cardstock for continuity and I will most likely continue to use PB&J for even more continuity.

Thus endeth the first day of scrapbooking in quite some time.  Another would follow on the Sunday, the results of which I will also share with you.  Stay tuned.

2nd Scrapbook page of 2015

I need to spread these babies out.  I want it to look like I'm actually regularly blogging!  LOL...

So here was my second page of the weekend:

Forgive me but I haven't asked permission for my daughter's friend to be shown online so I have given her a lollipop head and covered up her name in the journaling.

This page was more adventurous than the first one.  I cut up the index page from a Basic Grey collection pack and overlaid the strips to back the photo.  I used die-cut Basic Grey letters and a very badly drawn ampersand for the title.  The little cartouche with the writing in it is a Stampin' Up! fancy label punch and co-ordinating stamp.  I used Memento dye ink in Paris Dusk to stamp the shape but also to add random crackle and french text to the white background card.  I really enjoyed doing this.  It shows because I will employ this technique the following day on another layout.

I've started scrapbooking again!

Yes, you have read correctly.  I have started scrapbooking again.

Can I confess something to you?   It was really hard to get started again!!!!  I knew sort-of what I wanted to do with the photos but as I was staring blankly at my paper and card stash, I just didn't know what to do.  I was trying to choose paper and I just couldn't make any decisions.  Something was missing?  What was it?

Photos.

I had the photos I intended to use but I wasn't looking at them while I was choosing the paper!  So finally the penny dropped and I was able to make a couple of choices.  I decided on a simple stamped title and then I started messing with the tiny torn scraps that were left over from when I tore the patterned paper to use on the page.  I made some of it into a little pleated flower and some of it I just folded up into a zig zag....  eventually, this happened:

And you know what?   I'm happy with it.  At least I started... and from then I continued to make 6 more single pages and a double layout.  Hooray!

I'm back, baby!

Bloglovin!

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Hey everyone,

I have met a whole new group of blogging friends on and we're all going to meet up soon.  I'd like to "get to know" them by reading their blogs, which spurred me on to sign up to Bloglovin, basically an aggregator of some sort... so anyway, I am in the process of "claiming" this blog as mine so I need to stick some code in somewhere... let's see if it works....