Breathing Space

All I want to say to you is...

2012-01-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

A year ago I recieved two Bo Bunny edgy albums. They went in my stash for that special occasion. One of them has now been used in this album for my niece. I wanted it to be more than a record of things she did and so have made it into a book of mine and my families feelings for her.

I have used a lot of pink as her Mum does not like it and will encourage her to wear any colour other than pink so this might be my only chance.

She was about 3 weeks overdue and I started the book with a photo of her scan a week after her due date. I wrote all my hopes and dreams for her in the form of a letter.

The next set of photos were taken when we first saw her at 3 days old.

These next two pages I wanted to embellish using lots of soft white to emphasize the babiness of the layout.

The lace circle was in my stash but the pin I made by making roses from spirals of felt which were held in place by threading onto the pin. In-between the roses I threaded a very pale pink ric rac.

I am sure that at some point in her life she will decide that everyone, including her parents is against her, and so I wanted to record the tender love and car that her dad (my brother) showed her and to tell her that he will always love her even when she can't see it.

These two pages just show her that she is a part of the family and a very much longed for little girl.

I cut the number three out of my paint colour charts and then wrapped ribbon round it. The pink colour just shows through softening the white.

I used a cut out photo of the balloon my mother bought for her as an embellishment.
I still have two pages left which I will use when I have printed some photos of I have with her over Christmas.

Something Finished - at last

2011-12-30T04:01:00.001-08:00

At long last I have finished the first of my journey home books. The second one has all the photos in but is waiting for embellishments and a cover.

Here are some pages from the first book.

The front and back covers were made from a box cut up and covered with some material I brought home from Tanzania. It is stitched on around the edge onto the card and the spine is just material as I found that it needed to bend as the book was opened.

The book started with some very simple pages to record our farewells from the village and school.

I had made the book form envelopes which meant that each page had a pocket in which I could place journalling or extra photos. By the time I got to our farewell from the health centre I had started to get a bit more adventurous and instead of just inserting tags into the pockets I made this tag from an envelope which I could then use to house a tag with extra photo and journalling.

I wanted to embellish some pages but because I had used highly patterned papers I felt that would be too much, so this simple paper ring with beads stitched around the edge was ideal to highlight my text.

As this was essentially a book to say goodbye to my old life I made a point of writing each good bye I had to make down.

This page needed very little embellishment after I had put the text on. What statrted out as a simple button eneded up as the perfect finishing touch once I had inked it and then layered it with clear ultra thick embossing powder and mica spray.

I finished it with a peel off and then more clear ultra thick. The final heating was a bit dodgy as the peel off threatened to melt as well as the powder.

I had saved all the paper work and tickets throughout the journey and these boarding tickets worked really well with an aeroplane cut from a child's wallpaper border for this page. Tags from our luggage can be seen peeking out of the pocket.

I had attatched these tickets (below) but wanted to stop them flopping over the page. Peter had thrown some old floppy discs away and had given me the metal sliders from them. I painted inked and stamped one and finished it off with ultra thick embossing powder and a circle from the backing paper. The tickets slotted into it really well.

In my stash I've got loads of shapes which I have made from air drying clay. I painted a simple disc and then wrote in it using permanent marker, to finish this page off.

The embellishment on the tag had been made form stamping into the clay. I painted it in coordinating colours and attached it using lots of glue dots.

This page had many different forms. First off all I stamped the title and got a letter the wrong way round. I managed to make this into a feature by duplicating the mistake. I then managed to stamp unevenly and while trying to correct it I smudged ink everywhere. This was corrected by placing a new strip over the text and extra sticker embellishments around the photo. The final letters were child's foam letters painted with enamel paint. This tool several coats and I have had to attach them firmly so that they cannot bend and so crack the paint.

At the recent Wycombe Scrappers Crop we were asked to create layouts containing a photo of ourselves. These photos were taken by my Mum as I was waking up one morning while staying with her.

The back ground to this one started of with smearing silver acrylic paint over the page with my finger to try and create a dreamy background, I then stamped over it with flowers. The bottom layer is a paper mania paper I have had for ages and covering the bottom of the paper to resemble the bedclothes was the perfect use for it. I finished off with loads of butterflies cut from another paper mania page and gems glued along one of the curves. I stamped a journalling block onto a sheet of plain card on which I had previously stamped with a distressing stamp. I painted a line of silver paint along the bottom and used rub ons for my title.

This layout was very simple, with a layer of torn inked paper, the saved edge of an old cotton petticoat, and two lace edgings one which I had gathered and sewn little pearls into it.

I had these lovely cup cake pictures which needed something adding so I used buttons as the cherries and gems to decorate the slice of cake.

I have taken a break from my journey home over Christmas and an creating a book for my new born niece containing all my hopes and dreams for her.

About to leave Italy

2011-11-22T07:06:00.000-08:00

No we haven't been away again but my journey home book has got as far as Rome and I am hoping that before I go to the crop this weekend I will have got my journey home album to Paris or at least on the train out of Rome. After all I do now have a lovely little niece to make lots of pages about.

Return of the Mojo

2011-10-05T04:39:00.000-07:00

The last few months I have not really felt like scrapping much. I have been through the motions but not with much enthusiasm. Last weekend however my mojo returned and I am now settling back into it, but of course I have no finished layouts. I am currently working on an envelope album of our return journey home so it might be some time before anything appears here.

In the meantime am I am continuing my design work for craftsuprint and instead of showing my items here have included a link at the top of this page. I also post all new designs on Facebook.

Lots of Pages

2011-08-21T06:52:00.003-07:00

OK so there haven't been any new pages on this page for quite a while, that doesn't mean to say I haven't been doing any. Quite a few have been of individuals which I didn't think were suitable for publishing and then I just got out of the habit.
So here are some that I have been working on.

The photo's for this page were taken on one home leave and are of my mother in laws house. At the time we weren't sure that she would still be living here when we returned and we wanted something to remember my husband's childhood home by.

I have decorated the page with music and flowers which is what I always associate with this home. For my journalling (still to be written) I have used paper bags as in this house nothing would go to waste.

Many years ago I was given this dress, it could be worn in summer or winter (with layers under it) and was defiantley one of my favourites.

I used inked the edges of strips of the dress fabric and sewed on the buttons form the dress to use as an embellishment strip.

One of recent bargain buys has been two tins of metallic enamel paint form our local DIY store which was shutting down. Feeling that the top of this page was too empty I dabbed on spots of paint to form swirls which are slightly embossed and finished the page off nicely.

When we returned home in 2009 for medical treatment for Peter we had no idea if we would be returning to TZ and so had no idea what we should be brining home. As a way of distraction from the enormity of what was possibly happening I took photos. I have used these ones along with boarding passes to document those feelings, although the journalling is still to be added.

These phots were taken from the car window on the way back form a weekend break and show the wonderful variety of ways of travelling we saw in Tanzania.

We accidently found that we were staying in the same town as a car rally and were privillaged enough to be able to watch it as they raced along public roads with no regard for non race traffic and no barriers to prevent the public rushing up to the cars as they slid around the corner. A scary but unmissable experience.
OK so we didn't have traditional a Christmas in Tanzania but we did have the school nativity play each year and I loved these papers

This layout is based on scenes form a tourist craft market in Livingston Zambia. The game being played by the stall holders appeared to be similar to draughts but bottle tops were being used as counters.

Therefore I used original bottle tops bought home with us as embellishments.

The Corner Shop

2011-01-05T13:56:00.001-08:00

This layout is all about the corner shop when we were living in Dodoma. It really was amazing, as small as a garden shed and stocked with a huge variety of goods. Quite often I would go out for something as simple as margarine and return with that plus a lipstick, soap powder and a Tanzanian version of cake.
I deliberately kept the layout drab looking with odd bright bits of colour as that is exactly like the shop was.
I challenged myself not to use any stitching on this one.

Masai

2011-01-05T13:47:00.000-08:00

It's another stitched(around the star)layout. The journaling on this lay out reads
Tall, graceful and successful they were the stars of the tribes. They were neither Kenyan or Tanzanian they were Masai.

The embellishments were made by painting a bottle top with nail polish and then using a rub-on 'M', painting a child's sheriff's star silver and then topping it with stickers stuck on tartan paper and a clear button stitched onto the same tartan paper. I have a feeling the paper is more Scottish than Masai but who cares?

Lushoto

2011-01-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

I seem to be using a lot of stitching on my layouts at the moment and this one is no exception with the cross stitch over the bracket and holding the folded corners down.

The flower embellishment I made by pushing a rubber stamp into air drying clay and then painting with acrylic and poster paints. I never throw any paints out until they have dried beyond recovery and sooner or later I find just the job for them, many of my poster paints are left over from my childhood and are still going strong.

Friends Layout

2010-12-16T06:04:00.000-08:00

This layout celebrates the first time we played the Stealing Santa game and all those who we played with. Because we were in Tanzania we didn't have our family with us but good friends made it a great time.

For embellishments I made some from shrink plastic which was great fun (it shrinks to 1/7th of its size and increasing it's thickness 7 times when you heat it giving a small detailed image). I mounted stickers on acetate so that they didn't have to lie flat on the page, giving it more depth. The remainder were buttons, bows and sequins with small beads in the center and some word stickers. I stitched most of the embellishments on to give the idea of hanging as decorations from the tree would hang.

I made my large letter by dry embossing a piece of card and then chalking the raised parts in a darker shade. The small alphabet beads finished the title off.

Scrap Page for the Church of the Good Samaritan

2010-12-07T12:41:00.001-08:00

This page has been real fun to do.
The really busy paper was the only one which reflected the brightness and joyfulness of the day but caused a problem because nothing would stand out on it. The chiffon ribbon under the letters was just what was needed to make them stand out.

The black edging and bunting strip brought the whole layout together.

I put the photos and journaling a flip book which you open to reflect the theme of the page which was the official opening of our church in Tanzania.

Scrapping Class

2010-11-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

I have been working on these two layouts for a class I am teaching at our local craft shop (Blue Haze) I am trying to keep them pretty basic and so have worked to a simple template for both of them.

This one uses an old chocolate box liner as a border, the swirls on it just seemed to tie in with the theme of steamy smoke.

For anyone who is thinking of coming to the class on 13th January you are very welcome. Please bring with you any card making or craft supplies and tools which you have,plus a couple of photos to scrap (no larger than 6x4 inches) basic papers will be provided. Hope to see you there.

Dinning Room Pictures

2010-09-09T05:18:00.000-07:00

We really wanted to have some pictures which were different on our walls. With the help of various lodgers who have left us a selection of frames we put together these two pictures using our leftover notes and soda bottle tops. Searching for notes which were not covered in grease was a challenge and our local cafe helped us get a good selection of tops which hadn't been bent when they were removed from bottles.

Craft Room

2010-08-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

I have had such fun doing this room (see our joint blog for more pics). There are still lots of little bits to add but here is the progress so far.

The most important part of the room, my lovely big craft desk
and all my little favorite bits stuck on the walls around it.

I made the pen pots years ago by papier mache over old plastic containers such as the bottom half of old lemonade bottles. They were dumped in the garage while we were abroad and now have a new coat of paint.

Because the desk is in an alcove I wanted to separate it off from the rest of the room. I used to have a curtain but that didn't go with the brighter cleaner look so I have hung butterflies along the bar where the curtain track went and when my craft paper arrives from TZ will cut out semi circles and hang them along the top - sort of bunting style, at the present it is just the templates that are hanging there.

I originally thought of putting cork board behind the desk and painting it so that I had a notice board. Then I came up with the idea of painting washers (you need to strip the shiny surface off them first, I used spirit of salts) and then attaching things to them using magnets or as in the photo magnetic paper. If the paper is too heavy it doesn't work but for lighter things it is great and the washers look so pretty.

Lady Bug Mini Doll

2010-08-12T12:48:00.001-07:00

Most of my crafting since we have returned has been decorating my craft room. My first complete project though has been this cute little lady bug.

Many years ago I bought a book called "Lovable Mini Dolls" by Terumi Otaka and went through a craze of giving everyone mini dolls. Then of course the book went on the shelf never to be used again. With all my scrap gear in transit I have dragged out all the old stuff and found some felt that I had stored in the loft, here is the result.