A Very Glam Birthday

Saturday 26 April 2014


My friend Laura is a super-glam girl so for her birthday I needed a very glam card to match her status. I love this image Tiffany in Couture Dress by Milk Coffee, it's exactly the sort of think I can imagine Laura wearing so I knew I was going to use her as my main image. As for the background, I had looked at this sketch many times and not got anywhere, so I left it and left it, and then I had a brainwave. My mum had recently been going through some of my old scrapbooking stash and came across an old paper stack called 'All Dressed Up' by DCWV. She found some pink sparkly paper in there with strips that resembled floorboards and she made a fab layout with it - my brainwave was that the paper also came in aqua colourways as well as the pink - I was right and the paper was totally perfect for the background of my card.


I cut the bottom of the the paper so that the strips were all different lengths, added a huge black crystal flourish and layered Tiffany on top. She is coloured with copics and glittered. To finish off I added a bit of twine (I don't seem to be able to make a card without twine these days), and a couple of die cut butterflies. I absolutely love this card and I know Laura will too. It's funny that a sketch I'd been avoiding for weeks, suddenly came together really well for me. Sometimes stepping back until the inspiration hits is a good idea.


This week's Sketch Saturday sketch is sponsored by the wonderful Milk Coffee and they are offering a prize to head on over to join in with this week's sketch to be in with a chance of winning.

Happy scrapping x






For card making and scrapbooking classes in St Albans, Hertfordshire, please contact me.

Hello Adventure

Thursday 24 April 2014


I've been wanting to capture our memories from our recent mini-trip to Centre Parcs for a little while now but wasn't quite sure how to approach it. We were only there for 5 days but of course I had a mountain of photos. I have scrapped some in 12x12 style and will no doubt do more but I wanted to create something that captured the essence of the trip all in one place. I found this Mini Matchbook album tutorial on youtube by Kristina Nicolai-White which I thought would be pretty perfect, and I went from there.


Kristina's book had about 7 or 8 photos in it I think and her pages were all the same size, although staggered, but I wanted to get more photos in and I wanted my pages to all be different sizes so I've adapted the mini book quite a bit away from her original design. I managed to squeeze in 21 photos.

I've embellished using various stamps, printables, squuins and sticky pearls. I've also used the same set of alphabet stickers (Glitz) all the way through. I've hand-written in some journaling too.

The photo on the right is actually a little flap, the photo folds out to the right to reveal two more photos inside:

I've used a variety of different papers: three from the Hello Again range by Carta Bella, four from the Thataway collection by Studio Calico, two from the Memories Captured collection by Fancy Pants and one from the Maggie Holmes 'Fleamarket' collection by Crate Paper. so a real mix. The sheet of journaling cards (Carta Bella) were particularly good for adding embellishments and interest to the pages.








For card making and scrapbooking classes in St Albans, Hertfordshire, please contact me.

TEAM Project Life: March Layouts

Monday 21 April 2014



And a very scrappy Easter Monday to you! I hope there has been lots of chocolate egg eating as well of lots of scrapping of course. I am sharing my March Project Life layouts today and there is another prompt up on UK Scrappers today: TEAM Project Life Prompt 3.  This month we're looking at ways of getting extra photos into your PL spreads and also making a confetti pocket.

I had a super-busy March so needed to fit in as many photos as possible this month! Week's 11 and 13 were particularly busy so there are videos to compliment the PDFs - they can be viewed below each respective layout below.






Thanks very much for stopping by - to view the full PDF prompt please visit the Project Life Forum at UK Scrappers.




Happy Mother's Day

Saturday 19 April 2014


I really struggled to create Mother's Day cards this year. For some reason every image I looked at didn't really work and I also couldn't find papers to work either. So I put them down for a while and eventually came back to them using this week's Sketch Saturday Sketch and an image by A Day for Daisies. A Day for Daisies use fine art style images as their digi stamps, very different to the cartoon-y style characters I'm used to playing with. I found this gorgeous image in their shop - she's called Morning Dew Fairy and straight away I knew my Mother's Day issues were solved.

Instead of colouring her with my copics, I went for a paintbrush and watercolour inks. I've deliberately gone over the edges and tried to make it look like a water colour style painting. I'm not 100% sure I like the effect, I'll no doubt be back to my copics next week, but it was a nice change (and somewhat quicker too!). I've added glitter to the fairy's wings and to the dew drops for a bit of added sparkle.

This week's Sketch Saturday Sketch is sponsored by A Day for Daisies and they are offering a wonderful prize to pop on over and join in with this week's challenge to be in with a chance of winning.

Happy scrapping xx

A Very Special 1st Birthday

Saturday 12 April 2014



Morning Sketchers. I have used this week's Sketch Saturday Sketch to make a very special 1st birthday card - for my little boy. There was a time when we were very worried he might never make it into this world, so I am delighted he is here, bouncing away and a very happy and healthy little boy. He is however growing up much too quickly and I cannot believe he is 1 already - happy birthday baby Max xxx

I may have gone a little overboard on the stars considering there was only one on the sketch...but that's fine as far as I'm concerned. I also added a paper strip behind the circle, some washi and some bakers twine. I've used a Lili of the Valley image and added a bit of coloured glitter to make it pop.


This week's Sketch Saturday sketch is sponsored by Simon Says Stamp and they are offering a fab prize to pop on over and join in with this week's sketch and be in with a chance of winning.

Happy scrapping xx





What else I got up to at GoGOGetaway...

Monday 7 April 2014

...Disney layouts. I annihilated my Simple Stories 'Say Cheese' collection pack. I did a facing page for one of my class layouts (see previous post) and then five more...

..meeting Donald.

...meeting Mickey

...meeting Pluto.

...meeting Goofy.

...and finally some of the details at our Character dinner, that really made it.
They were easy layouts because the Simple Stories papers have printed layers on them already which made them really easy to build on top of. I therefore got quite a few of them together quickly. Each layout was based on a sketch provided by the GoGo team which made things even easier!

 This layout was done for a GoGo challenge too - the challenge being to use the word 'Sublime' in the title. Not sure I 100% like it so might change it if I can get those glitter Thickers off.

Off the Disney topic now and a really cute photo which I thought I'd never scrap because of the neon colours in it - found some Basic Grey papers in the shop though that were perfect. This one is also based on a sketch.

and finally, my no make up selfie - brave of me to put it on the walls of the crop room for all to see! I based this on a GoGo sketch too but also it was March Week 4 challenge for UK scrappers which was to scrap about yourself, include a number but not as a bullet point, photos of yourself, and visible journaling.

and that is me, all scrapped out. How am I going to top that?!

What I got up to at GoGoGetaway...

Sunday 6 April 2014

...a LOT of scrapping, amongst staying up way past my bedtime, eating almost constantly and drinking a lot of coffee. A week later and I am still knackered - that was some hardcore scrapping.

GoGoGetaway consists of 7 classes throughout the weekend. Even though I teach scrapbooking myself, I always enjoy taking a class by someone else. I, like many others, are guilty of creating all of my layouts in a similar style - it is easy to reach for a formula that works, so when someone throws a layout at me that is very different from my usual style, I welcome it. It gets me trying new things, and sometimes involves getting messy, which I never usually do. It's much nicer to play with paint etc, when someone else is going to clear up for me afterwards! (or do the experimenting with the technique first).

This first layout had a plain white sheet of cardstock for the background. Those pink hearts are on a sheet of transparency. The transparency is scribbled on with Gesso (something I've never used before).  The red paper (cream on the back and also the middle part of the layout) is die cut which we cut up, weaved and curled. The speech bubbles are cut from patterned paper and the numbers are drawn using a stencil, then cut out - from cork and leather.

This layout involved curling lengths of patterned papers into straws, then sticking them around a small photo to create a frame. Gorgeous washi tape too. Very cute - love this layout!

I think this one is my favourite of the weekend - mostly because I am currently caught up in a love affair with stars. Obviously lots of stars on this layout so the reason I love it so much is self explanatory.  It is also silver and glittery and also features chevrons - more of my favourite things. I love the photo too - one taken at our recent professional photo session.

The layout on the left of this double spread was what we made in the GoGo class. I then made a facing page afterwards as I had some additional photos. We drew the Mickey shape with mists, added a load of splatter, sequins and some of the tiniest Minnie Mouse bows you have ever seen - or will ever see actually, they are so small you can't even see these in the photo! We used a lot of stickers and cut-apart elements to build up the layers.

In this one we cut strips of patterned paper, spritzed it with water, scrunched it up, pleated it and stuck it on the page to form ruffles - very cute. We added tiny tags and charms to finish off.

This one was interesting. We masked the blue background card with strips of masking tape, then dabbed white paint all over it. Peeled off and hey presto we had a wall! Very cool. Then there was a lot of fussy cutting of flowers and a glittery title to finish off.

and finally, a Project Life style layout. The box on the top right is a pocket. I love the little suitcase charm and the foam camera, and there were lots of stickers and cut apart elements to embellish the layout with. A bit fussy, but I love the result.

So that's the dedicated classes - I shall be back with all the layouts I made in-between the classes and late into the night. I think there are another 9 or so...