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?

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’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.

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

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

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.

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.

But on with the scrapbooking. Here’s the second layout I have to show you from the crop on Saturday, using my Counterfeit kit for May:

I mixed the two kits up a bit – using the spots from my Cruise Line kit with my Star gazer kit.  I really struggled with a title.  I couldn’t remember where we were in the Natural History Museum when I took these photos.  The background paper is of the night sky, which is what is on the walls of this room and I had star buttons and metal brad so i finally hit on Star Gazer.  I added the journalling after I had found Puddle Duck’s guidebook and discovered that it was the Earth Hall.  I also doodled some lines around the journal and title blocks.  Something I find myself doing more and more right now – wonder where that came from all of a sudden?

I’m linking this up to Shimelle’s second NSD challenge to use 4 X 6 photos (I nearly always do because it’s the smallest size that is easy to order!).  I have some more to share during the week and I am currently struggling with the divide your page challenge.  I’m using a mix of full 12 X 12s and divided pages in my London album.  With what I have done so far, my Shrek photos fall on a divided page.  I have got this far and I am not feeling the love:

I just don’t know where to go from here.  Should I try the photos one above the other with the pale blue above the stripes?  Or just use different papers?  Any ideas?

Me thinks it may be time to put it to one side and try something else.  And I do have lots to go at, having bought even more pp yesterday.  If there is a TKMaxx or Home Sense near you, it is well worth a visit right now – lots of Crate Paper and AC paper pads, pens, ribbon, date stamps and loads more.

I’m off to get out my mists – do you think I should get dressed and eat breakfast first?

So onto my busy day.  As you all know it was National Scrapbooking Day yesterday, so after dropping Puddle Duck off at her stage class, I went off to the crop at Bromsgrove – armed with my Counterfeit kit for May.  It was the first time ever that I arrived early and the new caretaker hadn’t turned up to open up.  After a belated start I got down to photographing my kit(s):

I saw lots of spots and stripes in red, white, black and blue in the original kit.  A chalkboard paper, a yellow floral print (which I have in my stash), anchors, pegs, buttons, twine and washi tape.

I knew I had most of that in my stash so pulling a kit together wasn’t too hard.  One thing did bother me however, and that was that the papers were all single colours – no paper combining all of them, so I added a sheet from my Royal Caribbean Cruise collection.  I threw in some cruise stickers and 3D embellies, some journalling cards, wooden boats and flair style buttons for my Cruise Line kit.

In the second kit i saw a beige spot, yellow herringbone and pale blue text.  I had a sheet of the first and a scrap of the second. I thought I could use a dark blue star scape instead of the oscilliscope pattern and found a pale blue cruise text pp while i was looking for it.  So that was the paper sorted.

The embellishments were a little harder and I settled for twine, wood veneer car, a cut apart journalling sheet from 4heures37 -called Eiffel Avenue and a sticker sheet from Authentic – called Loyal. And my Star Gazer kit is done.

All I need now are some alphas – queue American Crafts Thickers, Webster Pages Story Tellers and some Papermania foam letters and I had two kits to take to the crop. With all those cruise based papers and embellishments I pulled out some photos from my 2010 cruise, a couple of photos from Legoland’s Pirates’ Landing and last year’s trip to the Museums in London. I went with the Glitter Girl limited supplies approach so that I could unpack and re-pack quickly and not spend too much time deliberating, because I had to leave early to collect Puddle Duck and take her to her friend’s birthday party.

I managed to get one LO done barring the journalling and another almost complete. I finished when I got home with a little heavier weight twine (well, nearer cord really).

I already have a number of pages of the Water Park at Labadee in the album, so it doesn’t really need a title and journalling.  I’m linking this up with Shimelle’s 18th NSD challenge to use the power of three.  Three embellishments around two 4X6 photos is something I do quite often now thanks to Shimelle.  Here I have three red and white circles with an anchor.

I have a couple more pages to show you from yesterday, but I think I will spread the posts over the week.  Hope you had a fun crafty day yesterday.  What did you create?

Post Script – also linking up to challenge to use 4X6 photos because we can combine challenges and enter each challenge more than once.  Hurrah!

Yes my blog is 2 years old today and to celebrate I would like to invite you to join me and a group of my crafty, bloggy friends in a scrapbooking extravaganza.  OK, a blog hop with a page each, but with a cunning twist.  Each page is a scraplift of the preceding page.  Now you may think that this would result in a succession of very similar pages (a bit like the display in the school classroom when the class is given  a famous painting to copy).  But it doesn’t.  Because you don’t all get the same page to copy – you get an interpretation of the page before, without having a direct reference to go back to.   In short, each page is unique and it can go in all sorts of directions.

Back at the beginning of March I created this page to pass to Alison:

I have various old photos in boxes and every so often I come across a box, have a sort through and think ‘I should scrap that’ and promptly do nothing about it.  This photo has been floating around in that category with that title for so long.  It’s one of my cute little baby sayings that The Grandma reminds me of occasionally – the sort of thing that we scrap about our kids and less about ourselves.  The photo is a bit of social history – look how offices have changed – piles of paper, no computers and a girly calendar!!!

I went for a bit of a stationery theme with paper, embellishment, border punch and stamp.  They had embraced new technology The Grandad’s place however, with a dictaphone, but that was only because The Grandad’s handwriting was so bad the typists couldn’t read it.  I must get a sample of his writing on this page.

There’s another story behind this page.  When I told my parents about it, the first thing The Grandma said was ‘I hope it is the photo of your Dad.  There’s one of someone he worked with who looked just like him.’  That got me worried.  But luckily my eyesight has not deteriorated to the point where I can’t recognise an old photo of my own father!

The papers are mainly from a 6X6 pad of Fancy Pants’ Back to School.  The whole thing was looking a bit brown – perfect for the 70s era but it needed a bit of a lift so I picked bright cardstock alphas for the title and created circle embellishments from the aqua paper in the pack.

Before I pass you to Alison so that you can see how she interpreted my page, I have a prize to show you.

If you would like to win this Studio Calico library style stamp and a pack of embellishments all you have to do is comment on every post in the hop and then leave me a comment here, letting me know what you might be scraplifting from any of the pages and which colour of American Crafts ribbon you would like me to include if you win (not forgetting to put your e-mail address in the sign in box of course!).  I’ll give you a week to leave me that final comment, so the deadline is midnight (BST) on 4 May and I’ll announce the winner on National Scrapbooking Day.

So with no more of a to do, here is a list of the lovely ladies who have been kind enough to help me with this little celebration:

Alison

Fay

Ruth

Jemma

Miss Smith

K

Missus Wookie

Sandie

Mel

Alexa

Jo

Jacky

If you get lost along the way, come back here and pick up the trail – it’s well worth it to see all their beautiful work.  And don’t forget to leave everyone a comment and let me know which colour ribbon you would like if you win!

Happy hopping.