Happy Birthday to Sophie's bestest friend in the whole wide world!

Saturday 30 August 2014


This week is a free week over Sketch Saturday which means you can choose any sketch you like from #215 onwards. I chose sketch #314. This cheeky lion card is for Noah, who is Sophie's bestest friend ever. They totally love each other even though they are only 3. They don't see each other that often but regardless of that she talks about him all the time, draws pictures for him, asks to go see him, and whether she can goes to his school. Apparently Noah is the same. Young love.

Noah loves Raa-Raa the lion so this cute little lion image from Bugaboo was perfect. I found papers in lion colours and distressed the edges.


This week's Sketch Saturday Sketch is sponsored by Bugaboo and they have a great prize on offer so head on over to be in with a chance of winning.






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

Oh So Dreamy...

Thursday 28 August 2014



About six weeks ago I was delighted to receive an offer to join the Hey Little Magpie Creative Team. It feels like ages ago but today I get to share my first Creative Team projects. You can see my six layouts below but there is a lot more detail on the Hey Little Magpie blog so pop over there to check that out too.

I choose to work with the Heidi Swapp 'Dreamy' collection which really is very dreamy! There is a coordinating set of Memory Files which is what  challenged myself to use on these layouts. I've also used the 'Classic Ali Edwards' Technique Tuesday word stamps and Chic Tags wood veneer shapes, sequins and tidbits to embellish my layouts.



I really enjoyed working with the Memory Files on my layouts as they add some much interest and interaction. They were slightly challenging at first as some of them are so big but I managed to find a few different things to do with them and I'm super-happy with the results.

Enjoy and happy scrapping xx 








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



Start with a Sketch #15, #16 & #17

Wednesday 27 August 2014



While I absolutely adore modern technology and the overwhelming amount of possibilities that comes with it, it does occasionally fail (like my hard drive failure last year), and that has happened this week :(

Whilst filming Start with a Sketch #15, #16 and #17 my memory card corrupted. That's never happened before (and I am now scared that I will one day lose all my photos stored on SD cards) and I have absolutely no idea why it happened. I was filming as normal, nothing wrong whatsoever but when I went to download the files onto my pc, none of them would open and they had all corrupted. I have most of Start with a Sketch #14. The last part of the video has no sound but you can see what's going on, but the final part of that layout was lost, as were the whole of #16 & #17. So I've tagged the completed layouts onto the end of the video and they are on here too, below, for you to see, but there are no process videos to watch. For those of you who regularly watch my videos, I'm very sorry that this has happened but believe me no one is more annoyed about it than me!

Start with a Sketch #15 features three small photos (around 3x4) and one title card, all across one horizontal strip with a small amount of embellishment at the top and bottom of the page. I am still using the ME-ology Collection Kit by Fancy Pants Designs along with coordinating embellishments and a few other bits and pieces from my stash.







Start with a Sketch #16 has three small-ish photos all layered together, with some paper layers behind and a vertical strip down the right edge of the page. I sometimes find it quite difficult to cluster photos together and I tend to default to putting them all in a line so I wanted to move away from that in this sketch. Clustering photos like this can lead to awkward gaps and spaces but I just always then make sure I fill those in to ensure they don't look awkward on the finished layout.


And finally today, Start with a Sketch #17 contains one normal-sized photo and two tiny square photos with a large block of pattern on one side of the layout and several paper layers beneath the photos.


Apologies once again for the lack of these videos, I sincerely hope nothing like this happens again and I'll be back next week with Start with a Sketch #18, which will be a full video!

Happy scrapping xx






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

Happy 3rd Birthday

Saturday 23 August 2014


All of Sophie's friends are turning 3 at the moment, June, July and August are VERY busy card making months for me! This one is fr Laura and we thoroughly enjoyed going to her little party last week and this is the card I made her. This cute image is by 2 Cute Ink and she is very cute isn't she! I love her sunflower.

This week's Sketch Saturday Sketch is sponsored by 2 Cute Ink and they have a great prize on offer so head on over to be in with a chance of winning.






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

Start with a Sketch #14: Hitching a Ride

Wednesday 20 August 2014



Good morning and happy Wednesday to you. Today I am still working with the ME-ology Collection Kit by Fancy Pants Designs, which has some gorgeous colours in it and fab designs. I'm on a bit of a mission to use up the whole pack in this mini-series of sketches and am working through my photos from a recent trip to Centre Parcs.


Sketch #14 is designed to feature one 6x4ish portrait photo but with some patterned (or textured!) paper on show behind it, along with a few layers to highlight the photo. As with all my sketches there is plenty of scope to add additional layers and build on the embellishment areas.



As mentioned above, the supplies I've used mainly come from the Fancy Pants Designs 'ME-ology' Collection Kit. I have also used some additional coordinating embellishments: the Ephemera Pack, Flair badges and Small Decorative Tags. Apart from using those coordinating supplies I'm also doing some stash-busting of my existing stash as I'm trying to use up a few things (to make way for more of course), including a few transparencies, Project Life cards, some wood veneers and enamel dots. I also got messy with some paint, which is very unlike me. The corrugated paper had a strange effect on me...!

Enjoy the sketch and please feel free to play along below.
Happy scrapping xx






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

TEAM Project Life July Layouts

Monday 18 August 2014



This month in TEAM Project Life (the full prompt can be downloaded from UK Scrappers) we are looking at:
including something sad :( ;
using typography and
using tags.








Thanks very much for stopping by, I hope you enjoy the videos and the PDF which you can find over at UK Scrappers.

Happy scrapping xx







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

Lazy Afternoon

Saturday 16 August 2014


Two men's cards in a row. Last week: my Grandad, this week: my hubby's Grandad. I usually make my cards quite far in advance but this one I left right until the last minute and managed to get my creation uploaded only just in time - very unlike me! I didn't know what image to use so, after considering many, finally settled on Lazy Afternoon by Lili of the Valley, a gorgeous image that until the other day hadn't seen any ink. I went for manly colours, added a few interesting bits of trim and a huge wooden button and called it done. But then I felt the need to add sparkle, so went for a few gems and even some glitter - manly brown glitter of course.


This week's Sketch Saturday Sketch is sponsored by Bunny Zoe's Crafts and they have a great prize on offer so head on over to be in with a chance of winning.

Happy scrapping x







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



Start with a Sketch: Who will be the Winner?

Thursday 14 August 2014




Welcome back to another mini-series within the Start with a Sketch videos. Over the course of the next few videos I'll be making as many layouts as I possibly can using the ME-ology Collection Kit by Fancy Pants Designs. The Collection Kit comes with 12 double sided patterned papers, three corrugated sheets of cardstock, a 12x12 alphabet and element sticker sheet, a 6x12 alphabet sheet (large alphas) and a small sheet of label stickers. I did think I'd bought the little sticker sheet separately but it turns out it was included in the Collection Kit all along.  As well as the contents of the Collection Kit, I've also used the coordinating Ephemera Pack, Flair badges and Small Decorative Tags. Because these all coordinate with the Collection Kit, they were really easy to work with, but I'm also always up with a bit of stash-busting with my existing stash, so I pulled out a few items that I wanted to get used up to also use while working on these layouts. I've gone into more details about the products I've used in the video below.



Today's sketch incorporated two regular sized portrait photos, as well as two smaller landscape photos. It's often difficult to work with photos that are different orientations but sometimes that's the photos we have and it's necesary to make them work. Having different orientations of photos can often leave awkward gaps but if those gaps are put to good use i.e. putting your title there, or an area of embellishment, then those gaps are hidden and seamlessly become part of the layout. Instead of worrying about those gaps: use them to your advantage.






You'd never know that there were once awkward spaces on my layout. Try it out for yourself.

Happy scrapping xx







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

Happy birthday to my Grandad

Saturday 9 August 2014



ugh, another man's card to make, this time for my Grandad. I always struggle making mens' cards. This time I used an anchor image by Oak Pond Creations as he likes boats (sort of relevant) and went for papers by My Minds Eye. I also used a PL journaling card and used wood veneer stars to finish off.

This week's Sketch Saturday Sketch is sponsored by Simon Says Stamp and they have a great prize on offer so head on over to be in with a chance of winning.

Happy scrapping x





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