Photo Scavenger Hunt 2013

Are you taking part in Rinda’s Summer Photo Scavenger Hunt?  I’ve done it for the last three years and had a lot of fun and this year I started early – here is my first set of photos:

1.   Open air market – here’s the one in Stratford-upon-Avon

2.   Theater for performing arts – Royal Shakespeare Company by the River Avon in Stratford.

6.   Someone taking a nap – my little nephew, Cousin Number 2 after The Grandad’s 80th Birthday Party

9.   A photo with something that doesn’t belong – a Tudor maid with a mobile phone

10.  A bench that is outside – Look at this beauty Puddle Duck spotted!

11.  An animal in a zoo, aquarium, nature preserve, etc. – an iguana in the Butterfly Farm at Stratford.

12.  A cloud in the shape of something – can you see the jelly baby sleeping in the clouds?

13.  A fence – complete with complimentary shadow

So there’s my first eight.  How are you getting on?

 

A Post of Small Things

Hello – it’s been a while I know, but we’ve had half term and I took Puddle Duck for a day trip to The Globe in London and a few days with friends at a holiday camp near Great Yarmouth.

I’ve done more crafty shopping than scrapping.  I made one and a half LOs and some little things to send to Ginger as part of Sian’s Great Big Swap of Very Small Things – none of which I can share right now.  So instead I have a review of some new shops I’ve never tried before and a lovely surprise waiting for me when I got back from Great Yarmouth.

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t resist snapping up some of the recent scrappy bargains from TKMaxx and Home Sense.  Our local stores had so many 12 X 12 paper pads I rather over indulged.  Pads of paper are lovely but, unless they include cut apart sheets, you do find yourself wishing for some matching embellishments.  So I had a look on-line to find some in the same lines.  I eventually ordered some Crate Paper stickers and ephemera packs from A Trip Down Memory Lane (ATDML).  They had Maggie Holmes and DIY Shop, so I ordered from both.  I placed the order at the weekend and it arrived on Tuesday morning – so fast.  Everything was there and they had included some ribbon in the box.  I’ll definitely be using them again.

It’s always hard to know what you might be getting in the ephemera packs, so here are a couple of photos of the contents.  First Maggie Holmes (apologies for the poor focus – I think it’s camera shake form the long exposure.  I can’t retake because I used a couple of journal cards on that half finished LO.)

And now the DIY Shop pack:

There’s lots of gold sparkle in this one.

The second new place I tried was Capture the Magic, which is in Soham and provided a convenient break in my journey home from Great Yarmouth.  It’s a large shop with a good range.  I finally got some WOW clear embossing powder and hexagonal Nestabilities, which which have been on my wish list for a while now.  They don’t stock American Crafts or Crate Paper, so no chance to buy some more embellishments to go with all those paper pads!  They do have a machine which accepts £1 coins and then dispenses a large plastic ball full of crafting goodies.  Puddle Duck is usually banned from similar machines but this one was worth it – we got a huge bag of buttons, which are now neatly sorted by colour in plastic tubs.  It’s too far to visit the shop any other time, but they do an on-line service so I will probably try that.

Then when I got home I had the surprise of my parcel from Joanne as part of Sian’s swap.  This is what came out of the envelope:

That anchor envelope will be finding its way into the last of my May counterfeit kit I think.  And this is what it contained:

 

Lots of crafting possibilities there.  Thank-you Joanne and thank-you Sian for organising this.  And Ginger, if you are reading this, I am on with your little package.

We’re off to Hampton Court Palace for the day today (if Puddle Duck wakes up that is).  Whatever you get up to today, make it a good one.

 

 

 

 

I had such a great time doing Shimelle’s NSD challenges and can’t believe that she pinned one of my layouts on her inspiration board here.  And there’s one from my friend K too – she says we’re pin pals now LOL!

I’ve carried on scrapping this week and did this LO with my May Counterfeit kit:

It will go in my album opposite this page I did two weeks ago.  I had intended to use the red and white stripe paper from the kit but by the time I’d finished it was still a whole sheet.  But it did inspire this Christmas LO of Cousin No 1′s first Christmas:

I’ve had these Christmas papers and gift tags since I started scrapping in 2005 and the embellishments have been acquired over a number of years – mainly from Paper Craft Inspirations, so it’s good to get some used up at last.

 

The Last 3 for Shimelle’s NSD

So today is the last day of Shimelle’s National Scrapbooking Day (Week?) challenges and I have managed to do 12 of the 24.  Which means that I have got behind and I have so much catching up to do visiting blogs.  I’ve got three LOs to share in this post, although two of them are still waiting for journalling.

Do you remember my divided page from Monday that I was having such a struggle with?  Well I didn’t give up.  I went through my new paper pads and pulled out a cut apart sheet from one of the Crate Paper pads.  And this is what I ended up with:

Once I had the tags and banner everything else just fell into place.  I’m really rather pleased with what started out as being such hard work, but now I’m struggling to know exactly what to put in the journalling!  Linking this up to Shimelle’s 21st Challenge to use a divided page.

For my next page I got out my glimmer mist.  I wanted to add some sparkle to some snowflakes for a couple of other LOs and thought that if I laid them on some kraft cardstock and then sprayed them I might have a nice background cardstock for another LO.  So that’s what I did and this is what I ended up with:

A little different to my normal pages but I think it’s growing on me.  The little row of christmas trees is cut from a cracker and the Ticket to Heaven tag came off Puddle Duck’s coat, so I guess this counts for the challenge to use unexpected supplies too.

For my last challenge I used my Counterfeit kit and a couple extra supplies left over from the LOs I’ve done this week, with some photos from The Black Country Museum.  I also added a white flower started by Puddle Duck when I was making brooches to send to the Soulscrappers DT for Christmas.

So there you have it my LOs for Shimelle’s NSD challenges.  I have a double LO laid out on the table and at least one other in my head but I doubt they will be done for midnight (I have to take Puddle Duck shopping now).  I’ll be round later to see what you created

Mary – Pretty in Pink

I’m still working on Shimelle’s NSD challenges.  I don’t usually ‘do’ pink, which begs the question as to why I bought a 12 X 12 pad of Crate Paper’s Pink Plum.  Maybe it was because I had in the back of my mind that they would be perfect for scrapping the photo I took at church that morning.

I printed two small photos – one of them cropped from the original.  The pink blossom pattern made me think of Melissa Stinson’s pages so I popped over to her blog for a little inspiration – picking up the scalloped rings, hand cut border strips and machine stitching and this is what I ended up with:

The title comes from the hymn which was sung as the children crowned the statue of Mary and laid flowers around it.  I broke out the Big shot to cut the scalloped rings and title letters.  I fussy cut the cameras and vellum butterflies.  The vellum under the photos has glittery blossoms, so I’ve combined a few of the challenges here:

1. Scrap in pink

9. Do some fancy cutting

11. Make it sparkle

18. The power of 3

20. Scrap smaller photos

Smile in a Mug

I generally get my photos printed at 4X6, but some are just meant to be cropped square and this photo of Puddle Duck’s hot chocolate, smiling up at us from the floor of the cabin in Lapland is just one of them.  And April’s sketch at Sarah’s Cards was just perfect to scrap it:

My Lapland kit is running low now, so I used co-ordinating papers from different Crate Paper pads.  I even got my sewing machine out!  Love those little wooden birds I bought from the craft corner at a local(ish) garden centre.

I’m linking this one up to Shimelle’s 22nd National Scrapbook Day challenge to scrap with square photos.

Beachcombing

Here is the last page that I did on Saturday with my Counterfeit kit for May- after getting home form the crop.

I mixed up the two kits again.  I have some journalling in mind, but I’m not 100% sure where to put it.  Below or to the right of the photo?  I’d like to try along the twirl of twine but I suspect I’d mess it up.

I was in two minds as to which Shimelle challenge to link this to.  I thought of stretching your stash – because I have so much twine to use and I’ve never used this much on one LO before.  But on balance I think it will be challenge number 9 – do some fancy cutting.  The lifebelt and anchor were cut from the backing card of my cruise kit.

Post Script:  Well K tells me Shimelle is allowing us to combine challenges, so this also fits into 2. use 4X 6 photos.