Project Life my way!

Well, I've started, and so far so good, and fun!

I decided to do this year as my eldest DS will be 18 this year, DD 16 and DS2 13 - so a big year for us in the sense that it probably is our last year at home living as a normal family.  Next year DS will hopefully be at uni and things will change.  For this reason I wanted to take a closer look at our lives this year.  Part of me is very regretful that I didn't know about PL when they were little.

Armed with an album and a load of page protectors - a big Becky Higgins variety pack - like this - and some other smaller ones I had spare.  I'm hoping that one album will do me for the whole year but I may have got my maths wrong!

The only other thing I bought - mainly through sheer laziness - was two sets of gridded white cards - 6 x4 and 3x4 which will help me with the bulk of my journalling.  Other than that I plan to use existing stash, printables and my trusty Silhouette.

Actually, it isn't the only other thing I bought - I did invest in a typewriter this week.  Partly because I wanted to!, and partly because I'm hopeless at going to the computer and journalling, then printing it off, my printer doesn't particularly like cardstock, and I generally have to join a queue behind my children for the computer in the first place!!  This way it sits on my desk and I can tap away as the mood takes me.

It's gone well so far, but I need to invest in some Tippex as I do make mistakes and they don't just disappear like they do on a screen :)

I can't quite get my head round the week thing though, I mean NewYear's day was a Tuesday, and I never know what number a week is anyway so I'm just going to add stuff as I please in more or less chronological order.

There are so many ideas out there it is hard to fit them all into one little life document, but I'm loving all the input and have a page on my Pinterest here if anyone is also doing PL.  I have some stuff, but there are lots of links to other people who have loads more.  There is also a board of printables and another of Silhouette files for additional interest.

I am still going to scrap in 12x12 for the momentous occasions of the year, but I'm also hoping to catch up on past years' scrapping as well.

Finally a big shout for Photobox who sent my photos so fast that they arrived this morning having only been ordered yesterday - my kind of service!

Happy New Year - belatedly

Well it's been an age since I wrote on my blog - I've just been too busy, with Christmas and various other things - illness, darling daughter's English Revision - what horrid people schedule GCSEs in the first week back? - not to mention boring chores like getting new tyres for the car.  But I'm back and the new year is beckoning with lots of exciting new projects to do.

Most of them will include my Silhouette - already a valued part of the family :) - and pulling its weight in terms of contribution over Christmas.  I made my cards with it and a pile of delicious lanterns which held LED tea lights which doubled up as cards for some of my friends.

My new best friend is now helping me with Project Life and yesterday I discovered how wonderful the sketch pens are - they printed me some gorgeous bits and pieces for my PL (of which more another day) - and since I am a hopeless artist most of the time, will help me no end in creating beautiful things.

I am trying a new sock pattern  (called Hermione - free on Ravelry) as well, using metal needles this time.  I thought it would help if I had 2.25 needles in a different medium to my 2.5 bamboo ones as I can't tell the difference, but I'm regretting the choice as they are much longer and poke into my cuffs when I'm trying to knit.  DD wants them for her birthday at the end of March which shouldn't be a problem in theory, but with these needles ....

A little Christmas crafting

I'm mainly a scrapper and a card maker but every so often I like to do an altered project, and sometime in October I purchased this Tando Creative blank chipboard wreath.  I couldn't get hold of the Advent Calendar version so I decided to keep this as a wreath rather than number the circles.  Which is a good thing really, as having diligently gessoed the whole thing, it sat on the cupboard for the next several weeks doing absolutely nothing.  I picked it up today and finished it in one shot, with a break for drying time.  I am so pleased with the effect.

Forgive the flash in the photo!  I used a set of Christmas papers from last year by October Afternoon which had a pleasing mix of turquoise red and green with some subtle Christmas patterns.  I added some glitter and a little bit of 3d interest, some twine and a sign, and it was all done :)

It's December

..... and that means and Advent Swap and yes!! Santa has delivered and yesterday I got my grubby paws on a present - hooray!

My bag from Santa came like this:

It's all wrapped in kraft and dotty washi tape - so lovely, and if you look you can see the first present peeping out from the back - some lovely 6x6 Websters Pages papers - can't wait to have a play with these :)

 
I also made my Christmas cake - with a little help from DS2.  The fruit soaks overnight with some sherry and strong tea before being cooked for ages the next day - the kids traditionally ice it in their own inimitable style, and we'll eat it at Christmas - not a moment before, however much they beg!!

Finally I had an unexpected outing - the neighbours had some tickets for Palace that they couldn't use and as DH and DS1 are mad Palace fans and it was a high octane local derby against Brighton they thought they might like to go.  Sadly for them, DH and DS1 were already tied up so it was left to me and DS2 - neither of us Palace fans - but he wanted to go despite the freezing weather.

With two pairs of socks on, as many clothes as I could fit under my coat, a hat, scarf and gloves and a flask of hot chocolate in my pocket I ventured forth - I don't do football in winter as you get cold!  I'm really glad I did - the football was ok but the experience was really really fun - we stood the whole time - noone sat so we couldn't either.  There was so much singing and a carnival atmosphere, helped of course by the fact that Palace won easily, that we didn't really feel the cold until near the end.    There are a huge contingent of Eastern European fans (where the flags are in the corner) who seem to have adopted Palace and come with their own cheerleaders (men in t-shirts who obviously don't feel the cold) who conduct the singing and keep it going non stop throughout the match - their enthusiasm puts the Brits to shame - I mean, apart from the libraries at Stamford Bridge and the Emirates, 'Sing when you are winning' is a chant that could be fired at most teams in the league.  But not yesterday at Palace!  Unexpected as it was, I had a brilliant time!

In the evening we went round to some friends' for dinner - they had already put all their decorations up and the house looked amazing - put me to shame - ours are still in some else's loft - but now I feel that I really ought to get moving on the Christmas front - not to mention a fair amount of shopping to do - like all of it!!

The last from Eastbourne...

In 1985, I went to Hong Kong and China.  It was one of the best trips I have ever taken as I was staying with a HK Chinese family and so got to spend time doing some 'normal' things as well as being a tourist.  However, my photos from that holiday are typical of the time - not great quality.  I am going to scrap them come what may, although it is a slow process.

This is the last photo in my album - when I saw this cut file on Studio Calico it spoke to me of aeroplanes - so this is my departure lounge photo.  I was going to call it Leaving on a Jet Plane, but then I thought it was too corny!

The stamp is a lovely Kaiser crafts one which I embossed with white embossing powder.  The paper for the cut file is old Scenic Route.  In fact most of the layout has been in my stash for a while - Echo Park For the Record Stickers, a Maya Road envelope, patterned paper from Echo Park, Cosmo Cricket and SC?  Border stickers from Sassafras from ages ago.  The only new bits are the flag and a couple of bits of pp from BG Paper Cottage.

Now to tackle the rest of the album.

Getting even more messy!

The Mystery Kit at the Eastbourne Crop was a challenge in getting outside the box - with two sheets of white Bazzill, one of kraft, a square of red and white checked fabric and another of hessian, the brief was to make a layout without any patterned paper or premade embellishments - or anything else added in fact - but with free rein to use inks, stamps, paints, mists, masks, stencils, wire, embossing, diecutters etc.

It took me a while to get going but this was my finished result:

Please forgive the photo - it's so grey today I can't get a good one.

For anyone who is interested in the technique, this is what I did:

• In the spirit of the current trend I started by flicking mist across my Bazzill!

• I painted some bright rough flower shapes using acrylic paints and mists, used texture paste through a couple of stencils, one cut by a die cutter.  I also hand cut similar shapes out of the White Bazzill so I had a negative shape. I fixed some of the painted paper behind the cut shapes, and cut out some other flowers to use in my layers.

• One of the most fun bits was making my own stamp - you take this special foam block thing and use a heat gun to warm it.  Then you press it into anything textured you want - in this case it was decorative glass bits in a vase and then you can use it as a stamp - I have to do this again soon.
• The base layer was the texture paint and a wire mesh mask.
• Then came the hand cutting, and inking through a mask to make the blue flower shape.
• I decided to sew my title and used thread from the checked fabric to stitch the letters, which I then cut out in outline.

• I coated some threads from the hessian with gesso and arranged them in loops on the base.
• I had a ball playing with various embossing folders and the Big Shot to get some textured papers.  I coloured the kraft ones with paint, and used white embossing powder on some of the circles.  I stamped and embossed a border for my photo mat using a Hero Arts border stamp.  

• I then layered up my flowers, circles and embossed bits and pieces and stuck them down. The flower centres are made from texture paint, stamped, metal circles and curled up hessian threads, tinted with bronzing powder.  I also added dimensional paint to some of the flowers and embossed paper.
• Finally I added a flower (in two halves), cut from metal sheet and fringed, then tinted with alcohol ink.
• I also added some punched tiny hearts from the scraps of the painted Bazzill, and cut some more from white scraps, and added some butterflies in white. 

I absolutely loved playing with all this and getting messy - I'd even bought gloves so I could play without getting covered - and they are still in their packet.   I had no clear idea where I was going when I started, beyond using those photos and that font for the title, and I worked on it on at least 5 separate occasions as it evolved.  Some things I imagined didn't work out, others needed modifying, but all in all I have a layout that I am really pleased with, and that my DD loves too, which is great as it is for her album.

I'm definitely getting messy again - it took a change of mindset, but opened up a whole new world of possibilities - not to mention a new list of things I 'need'!!

The Annual Eastbourne Crop

Another successful scrapping weekend in Eastbourne with my lovely crop friends.  We had a Wild West theme - complete with human cactus - and so much effort was made to make the theme work - from Tin Can Alley, to the Wanted poster frame for wonderful photo opps, the Dirty Cowboy cocktail and cuban heeled boot bunting to decorate our room.

I didn't achieve as much as I had planned (as ever) despite the grey gloom which filled the first days making it less enticing to hit the shops.  This was partly due to the mystery kit (of which more in another post) which took up an inordinate amount of my time, and partly due to dithering on a grand scale.

I started off well with my Olympic themed layout (see previous post), and then moved on to the Silhouette heavy Wetland Centre double layout, and a challenge using an advert as inspiration - it was green and yellow with a sunburst on it - so guess where I went with it?  I even cut my own mask :)

This is testimony to just how finely the Silhouette will cut!  Am I getting boring?  Can you tell that I am in love with my new toy?

I was frustrated to not finish very much - due to massive ineptness on my own part - missing photos, or decisions to use things I hadn't brought and so came home with at least four incomplete layouts - but they will keep me busy if ever I get a spare evening!