playing with blue bazaar kits...

Hi again, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas :) With the year quickly coming to an end I thought it might be a good idea to share a couple of things I've been working on. Back in November I received another beautiful Blue Bazaar kit to play with.

I instantly fell in love with this gorgeous mix of Amy Tangerine and Prima goodness and had no trouble creating five layouts with plenty left overs from this jam packed kit.

I couldn't wait to use the gorgeous ombre paper but wanted to make the gradient colours stand out even more, so I cut the design into strips and slightly overlapped them before putting it all back together for a bit more dimension. 

unfortunately my photos don't do justice to the brilliant colours in the kit, but they are simply gorgeous and such a great match for a range of photos.

and I absolutely loved the awesome 'love' die cut paper that I used to frame my photo

toning it down a notch with a bit less colour, but adding in a few more details thanks to the fun Smash pockets from the kit that were prefect for adding extra photos and all sorts of keepsakes for this school themed page.

keeping it simple for this page of my little guy's sense of wonder as he explores the world around him

and finishing up with another burst of colour for a playful page for Cayden :)

again filling up one of the Smash pockets with extra photos and journaling

I was also lucky enough to get another fabulous Blue Bazaar kit for December which I will share in my next post, here's a couple of peeks....

thanks for stopping by xx 

Tweet

stamping with Polly!

I recently received a fun set of Christmas themed stamps from Polly! Scrap Kits which I have used to create an insert for my Project Life album to record a few of my favourite Christmas things. 

I have used the versatile Hot Colourful Christmas stamp set which is filled with a variety of words and numbers to help you document a range of celebrations and occasions during the holiday season. 

I've always had a bit of a thing for Christmas ornaments and like to add a few new pieces to our collection each year. We have gone with a traditional red, white and green colour theme this year and so I used these same colours with a A4 sized baseball card holder for my insert. I also added a little bit of gold and glitter to make it a bit  more festive :)

I have to admit that I'm not very good at stamping... don't get me wrong I really love the look of stamps but don't always end up with crisp results, but after a bit of experimenting I discovered that I could get a really nice textured effect when I stamped the words onto glitter cardstock and then heat set some embossing powder over the top. 

you can see what I mean about my lack of stamping skills with the word 'December' turning out a little bit blurred when I stamped directly onto the photo with pigment ink, but I think it gives the word a nice shadow  effect and actually like how it has turned out. 

I love the look of stamping onto vellum and created a stitched shaker pocket with tiny stars inside. The 'beautiful' word was stamped with Stazon ink and 'Christmas' was created with Zing embossing powder from American Crafts. 

As you can see your stamping doesn't need to be prefect to achieve some great results, and if you do feel a little bit uncertain then try stamping onto tags or tabs that can be added to your photos or journaling until you feel more confident.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out the Polly! blog for loads of inspiring ways to use your stamps and scrapping supplies :) 

Tweet

white with one...

I came across the White With 1 September challenge a couple of weeks ago but totally forgot about it until last night, and because I love scrapping with this combo and didn't want to miss out on the awesome A Lil' Somethin' flairs for everyone who took part in the challenge, I spent most of the afternoon busy scrapping. Being a slow scrapper I wasn't even sure I would get my page done on time, but just managed to get in before the deadline ;)

Here is the combo

and this is what I came up with...

 I love using green on my layouts and this particular shade is one of my faves, so it was easy to find a few things in my stash to match - I also added a little bit of grey, black and silver for contrast.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Tweet

project life week 1

At the beginning of the year I decided I wanted to take on Project Life. I have been drawn to this style of scrapping for a while now because of it's simple approach to documenting everyday life and decided that this was the year to start.

I started taking loads of photos and kept a diary to record of all of the little moments that made up each week and began stocking up on supplies. I'll admit that I was a bit overwhelmed with this new (to me) approach to scrapping, so I just kept gathering supplies while I admired what other people were creating in their albums for the first few months, but I was still loving the process and in May I printed off a huge batch of photos and finally started filling up my album - keeping a diary of what we did each week was a blessing when trying to work out where to place all of the photos.

I've still got quite a bit of catching up to do, but I am proud to say that I have completed my first weekly spread :)

Sorry in advance that the photos aren't great - it was a bit tricky to avoid glare on the page protectors and by the time I decided to take everything out of the pockets I began to run out of light. I'll try to get a few better shots shots in the morning.

I have gone with a weekly approach, and as you can see I have kept to my usual style of scrapping with clean lines, bright colours and using the photos as the main focus.

I'm still in the process of completing my title page, but am happy that I snapped a photo of one of the clocks from our place to mark the start of the year.

I really love that the photos don't have to be perfect and that there are all sorts of cool filler cards and little embellishments to help you tell your story.

Here's the second half of the week (again sorry for the dodgy photos)

I was inspired by the Life. Paper. Scrapbook. August challenge to use layers on your PL pages and used a range of vellum, tags, stitching and embellishments to add some layered details.

I created this little vellum pocket to hold a couple of tags to record all of the day's details. 

I really look forward to getting all of the previous weeks up to date,

 and I hope you will stop by again to see how it's going :)

Tweet

blue bazaar with project life...

Remember the little peek I showed you of the August Blue Bazaar kit in my previous post? Well the kit is up in the store and I can now share all the layouts I created as this month's guest designer. If you're familiar with Project Life then chances are you would have already spotted the fabulous Midnight Edition cards included in this kit.... they were one of my favourite items and yes, I used every single one of them over 5 layouts.

I went with the colour theme from the Midnight Edition for this first layout, and was influenced by Project Life style scrapping to create this page about my happy little guy.

I layered up several of the cards with some of the gorgeous glitter and canvas textures from the kit 

and was really happy with how easily it all came together.

I don't know if it's a bot thing, or if it's just my boys... but all 3 of my guys love a good sleep in
and so I created a page about my smallest sleepy head snoozing away a couple of weeks ago.
The puffy arrow words and numbers were as fun way to add a pop of colour to the page, and I really liked that the kraft papers were a perfect base for some of the brighter colours.

All of these pieces would make a great addition to your Project Life albums too -
 I have already started putting some of my kit leftovers to use in mine ;)

This wonderful wheat grass colour is such a great match for outdoor photos and I loved the way it worked with this lot of photos of Cayden blowing dandelion wishes at the park.

The printed canvas is so nice in real life and was an easy way to add some texture to the page.

I included a hidden journalling card that pulls out from behind the smaller photo using the 'notes' tab I created with the Elle's Studio stamp from the kit, and check out these cute glittery bees to go with the glitter paper!

I used a completely different mix of colours for the next page about me and my boy ♥

I decided to use the journal cards more as an accent on this page, with the yellow card doubling as hidden journalling that slides out from under the photo.

I kept the final page clean and simple to highlight this pic of my two youngest boys.

this time playing with chevron and glitter and just a little splash of colour.

If you are interested in August kit, then be sure to check out all of the subscription offers available. All kits come with full instructions to create 5 layouts and really are great value for all the goodies you will receive.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Tweet