CKCB LAYOUTS 19 + 20

Good morning, well it's Saturday morning and I thought no finer way to start it than to share more layouts.

Both of these were inspired by the sketches the counterfeit blog design team shared recently. Now I've had the paper in the background forever and never thought it would get used up, it was part of a blue paper pack which I loved so much I ended up with two packs, but there were a couple of pieces in the pack that I struggled to use, strangely enough when I came to putting this layout together I found it easy!

I hand cut the tags out of spare items in the kit and used up some of the metal brad type things in the top of each one, I don't have the tool to actually put these  through properly so tend to use a hole punch to make a hole big enough and then I used a little hammer on the back to flatten the pins.  

A couple of hand stitched buttons and it was coming along.  I used a circular die as a template to punch holes around and did a circle of stitching on the bottom right and then I wrote the journal above that stitching and on the left hand side. 

The picture is of Aslan from the Narnia tales and was at Chatsworth last year in their Narnia themed Christmas event.  The actual item had little mechanical mice biting at the ropes as well as Aslan appearing to breath.  

This sketch came from the guest designer Maggie this is the sketch and this is the original design source if you click here

Next up a layout  shared by Jemma which comes from the Kaisercraft Saturday Sketch challenge - which can be found here

The photo documents our first visit to Coventry Cathedral, I wanted to see the statue on the outside of St Michael and the Devil for an age and as we were holidaying nearby it seemed like the perfect time.  We took plenty of photos of the statue and I have in fact up to now scrapbooked two photos of it, one with me and said 13 year old in front of it and the other of just the statue.

This is the sketch in question, I loved the swirly title element on the sketch but was feeling lazy so I hand drew the word on my layout and then punched holes and stitched it and overall I'm quite pleased with it!

I've loved all the layouts shared on the blog post over on the counterfeit kit team - if you want to have a nosey yourself click here 

CKCB - LAYOUTS 15 AND 16

More counterfeit kit layouts this morning for you, yes layouts 15 and 16, now this month on the counterfeit blog they've mixed things up a bit including providing lots of sketch inspiration - now let it not be said that I turn down a decent sketch LOL!

The first layout was the one chosen by Stephanie her blog entry is here and this came from an original blog post with the original sketch here 

I really liked this sketch, it documents seeing James Arthur in concert earlier in the year, the photo is fairly poor as it was taken on a fairly old mobile phone, but it was good to document it so it appears in my scrapbooks!

and this is the sketch

The next layout was chosen by Leslie and this is the blog link with the sketch here 

This layout and more to the point this picture documents seeing Slava's Snow Show, at the very end of the show, these giant inflated balls were 'bounced' around the audience which is when we got this shot which I converted into an instagram photo.  Again it's good to document these activities even if the photos aren't great.  I used this photo for two reasons, firstly the photo is square (it's an instagram shot) and secondly because the circles behind the photo remind me of the ball in the photograph!

This is the sketch

There are loads more sketch inspiration over on the counterfeit kit blog and I've been making the most of them, I'll be sharing more of them later.

SATURDAY MORNING - FAMILY AND FRIENDS SCRAP 365 CHALLENGE.

Good morning everyone, well it's rather grey and miserable here at the moment, but they have forecast that the blue skies should turn up eventually this afternoon (fingers and toes crossed on that one).

Right last version of the scrap 365 challenge this morning (I loved this challenge can you tell).  This time said 13 year old and said niece found a game when we were on holiday and came peering around the corner wearing it - they had us in hysterics!

I enjoyed this layout because it used up lots of items I'd got just lying around, the half circle with the journalling has been on my desk an age.  By adding a few strips of paper here and there and adding a bit of handstitching it was done.

This is the original sketch 

And click here if you want to see the post and join in yourself, it's a fab way of getting off the starting blocks if you are struggling! 

SCRAP 365 CHALLENGE SKETCH

Morning all, well it's Monday (again, already), where do the weekends go, actually this one went in a flurry of activity sorting mother-in-law out very late at night, we had a feeling there was an issue on Saturday night, but had it finally confirmed last night when we got a Doctor too her who confirmed what we had suspected thankfully she's now on antibiotics, hopefully life will resume a degree of normality (or at least some sort of normal sleep pattern).

Right up lovely people, layout time, there is a fab sketch challenge over on Scrap365 and this month's sketch is one of those that you can use over and over again.  This is my take on the sketch

Up close you can see the stamped elements and glossy accents across the page.  The photo documents my niece painting my nails for me just before we came back off holiday last year, she did a fab job and I was worried that I'd forget to take a photo, so caught them on my phone camera and put them through instagram, it's funny as it documents where we travelling generally at that point in time as you can see from the map in the background!

If you fancy having a go yourself, this is the sketch

and this is their blog 

Scrap 365 Blog

Happy Scrapping

SCRAP365 - MARCH SKETCH CHALLENGE TAKE 2

Morning all, well I did do more than one take of the Sketch Challenge over on Scrap365

This is my second layout, this one when I was sat on the sea wall at Barmouth chatting with my sister, photo capture by hubby!

I used a combination of papers but they were predominantly the Papermania papers released last year with a nautical theme.

I did manage to add a bit of washi tape, as well as some tiny punched tags and a navy heart that I've had lurking on my desk for ages!

A little bit of bling on what I've now realised is a bit of a blurry photo!

If you fancy joining in check out their blog here

And this is the lovely sketch that the above layout was based on.

SCRAP365 CHALLENGE

Well I love the sketch on the Scrap365 challenge blog - click here to see this month's post

This is the original sketch

And this is my first take on the sketch (yes I liked it so much I did more than one layout but I won't share them all at once).

First up "I Lost My Hat" - Literally it fell in the water when we went to an underground mine which you had to get to by boat, I nudged the back of my hat on a bar and it flipped over and fell in the water.

Thankfully it wasn't very deep and my niece was able to scoop it out - I was reluctant to put it back on though!

Up close I finally managed to use some of those office supplies on my page!

THANK YOU AND A LITTLE CRAFTING

Just wanted to say thank you to you all for your kind words they are very much appreciated at the moment, given how difficult this week is proving to be add into that the news that the funeral will be Friday night into church and Saturday morning actual funeral you can imagine that this is not getting much easier.  Whilst not wanting to dwell on yesterday's post what it does remind me of is how amazing you all are, I didn't want to put anything too lengthy on my facebook page as there are many of us going through this grieving process.  I did want to document it here as it felt like a more 'permanent' home, so thank you for listening even though it wasn't a cheery post, my blog friends you are simply awesome! 

Talking of facebook - my brother's status yesterday brought a smile and a tear and before it gets lost into the depths of facebook I thought I'd put it here as well - he's always been fabulous with words

"thinks somewhere a very feisty old lady is being met by a very giddy Jesus in a party hat.  Goodnight Grandma, another beautiful star learns to shine in the nightsky" - like I said beautiful words

Anyway at times like this you start to appreciate how fabulous crafting is - basically because when life is hard it's something to 'throw yourself into' completely to allow your brain some download time.  I'm not coping particularly well and have spent two days moving paper around my desk at work - (worrying when you consider that I should be running payroll LOL!)

Anyway some recent crafting came from a link on someone's blog (apologies cannot recall whose) indicating that Shimelle does a sketch every Wednesday - well not one to shirk a sketch I discover one that required 4 squares on the sketch and it meant I could drag out all those value packs of 6" x 6" (I never understand why I buy them - think they are value for money then realise I can't really use them on a 12 x 12 layout) and generate some great layouts - this one

which I loved doing and loved it so much I did this one (excuse hubbies warped sense of humour LOL)

and then this one which I love the colour combinations on - I did the journaling around the edge on the latter two because it worked! 

So I'm off to do some more crafting tonight in the hope it's not just paper rearrangement!

SCRAPOLOGY FEBRUARY CHALLENGE

Last month I came across the Scrapology blog which had a great double page layout as a challenge.  I joined in and was amazed to find that I won - thank you ladies!  Anyway they've got another great layout for their February challenge this month and so I set too with great gusto I liked the layout so much that I didn't just do one layout LOL - this is what happens when I find a great sketch I use it more than once and I'm always amazed and how different the layouts look.  The first was a festive layout that i did of the local Christmas tree Festival - now I know I promised to make this a non-Christmas blog post but can't help it because it was the first one that I did for the challenge LOL

however, to prove I do scrap more than just Christmas here is the sketch used again on the new black steps at YSP

and again later on the same day when my Mum and my son and my niece were posting for the camera!

and all these followed the basic principle of the original sketch but different papers etc make the page look completely different!

Looking forward to the March sketch now - wonder how many different versions of the sketch I can do for that one LOL!  

Right off to play with paper again!