Explore Prompts 3 & 4 - and the self portrait!

Explore has demanded a lot more thinking than I had expected and in the middle of the chaos of the last week of term, DSs birthday and a host of other demands, I hadn't bargained on having to use my brain! But it has ticked away in the background and the above photos are the fruit of my labours.

Adventure, Maps and Perfection - quite a broad spectrum, but they made me remember happy travels, recalled my childhood love of maps and helped me to count my blessings - family, friends, the world around us, faith, and the satisfaction of having found my perfect hobbies.

The map flower was created as I had already seen these being made by my crop mate Yvette, for her daughter's wedding and had wanted to have a go. I hope to make it up to a bunch sometime or other! I also loved the Kerouac inspiration - one of my favourite books. The circles on the page for journalling were pure serendipity, and I managed a quick play with map bits (from an old travel book in the car) - just inked circles, a dabble with spirals and a flower made map bits.

10 Days of Summer - the reveal

Check this out! how gorgeous and summery is this kit? How lucky am I?

All ten days' parcels are now opened, and this is the kit that I received. I love it! so many gorgeous patterns, loads of potential with bazzill backgrounds, and lots of yummy embellishments to play with - can't wait to start. Just need to find some 'pink' summery pictures to go with it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! - my 10 days of summer rocked!

A new challenge

Today I've started a new class - Shimelle's Explore class. I'm hoping that it will introduce some new ideas into my crafting and that I will be able to keep up with the prompts.

Today I have to take a self portrait - eek! That won't be appearing on here - I am definitely in the category of scrapping other people and not myself, but I will take the photo!

I also get to make a little minibook to work in - I love that, so I'm off to do that now.

ETA - I've done my book now - I enjoyed it very much, I used mainly cardstock and patterned paper from my extensive scraps box, a couple of book rings, an envelope in case I need to store anything while I'm going along, an ancient file folder because I fancied having a bit of shape, and some cutdown pages of this fabby notebook I found in TK Maxx a couple of weeks ago for £1.50.

I embellished the front, and wrote my Note to Self, the basis of which is:

a) I don't like taking or looking at photos of me;

b) I'm in quite a creative place right now;

c) I've been quite tied down for a while but things are changing a lot for me come September;

d) I took this class to learn something new.

Bowtie Stickers

Despite my strict stash diet, I still can't resist looking around at what is coming out soon and my eye fell upon the new Nordic Holiday collection by Basic Grey. Like most of their collections, I don't actually want all the papers, but will invest in a few most probably. I loved the font for the alpha stickers, much less chunky than usual BG style and I also noticed that they had a new invention (at least to me!) - bowtie stickers.

Closer inspection shows that these are two strips of c/s trimmed into a bow at each end, a piece of fabric (or ribbon) gathered in, topped with a round piece of what appears to be c/s - a scalloped circle.

Of course, my cheapskate nature means that I had to try to make one! Using bits from my July Counterfeit Kit, I used an Echo Park pp base, a piece of ribbon, pulled in at the 'waist' with a piece of cotton, and a crate paper chipboard 'button' as a topper.

As I have already used it on a LO, I can only offer a cropped photo version of my effort, but you'll get the idea :)

I intend to have a session making more of my own versions, but you could use ribbon for the base layer as well, and buttons, badges or brads for the top - hoards of endless possibilities for the counterfeit scrapper!

Another LO done - Twisted Sketch #110

With the weather so grey and dull outside I wanted to do something bright, and adopted an unfamiliar colour palate of blue and orange today, inspired by the photos and the possibility of using up some of my Fancy Pants boy papers that have been sitting around for ages.

Today's sketch twist was ribbon, so I got out my ribbon box and layered it in a stripe across the LO, added another family patterned strip, and then used a final piece to make a loop for the hidden journalling tag.

It brought back such memories of the year 2000 and my pre-digital age when getting the right photo was just that much harder, but these came out beautifully. Then I was 9 months pregnant and struggling with the heat - today I'm really quite chilly and my DS is heading for high school - how time flies past.

From my Smash Book in June

I've found it a very satisfying pastime, keeping a Smash journal thingy for the summer. It is not up to date, but I have a calendar block which I am keeping updated with events, and adding things as I go. It is not in order but I find it more satisfying to add things to the page that sets them off best. I also am only printing off photos every so often so it has post it notes in it to remind me of future entries.

What would I change? - I need to tidy up my journalling - print off some of those nice printable blocks that people offer online, or use some stamps and have some to hand so it looks a bit neater. I also need to be more on the lookout for useable ephemera so I have nice things in my book, or maybe I just need a more exciting life!!

July is now under construction....

Is this finished?

From my Counterfeit kit, I produced this LO celebrating my husband's half century earlier this year. It is much more subtle and pale colourwise than my usual efforts and I keep looking at it, wondering if it needs something bold added to it to finish it off. Anyone with an idea would be welcome to comment please :)