Crate Paper Bloom and Happy and Hello Sunshine

This was my final class at the retreat, and after dinner on Saturday - I'll leave it there, but it did get messy with the glitter paste.

I used Crate Paper's Bloom collection along with some of the lovely glitter and crackle pastes and mists BoBunny does.  We started with the crackle paste, then added a bit of misting and a little bit of the gold glitter.  We also glittered some white feathers with gold glitter paste.

I really like this picture of my son, and the gold went perfectly with it.

The second page involved stencils and paste and a few drips of mist along with lots of layering of squares, and another sunny photo of us near the Monument in Washington.

Crate Paper Confetti and the Virtual Crop

Crate Paper has long been a favourite of mine, I love the colours and patterns and that for every pink piece of paper there tends to be some more masculine colours on the reverse, so I was delighted when Mel and Jill from A Trip Down Memory Lane sent me some of the Confetti papers for my Virtual Crop kit.  The Crop was last weekend but you can still see all the blogposts here and all the classes are available to download (here is a link to mine), there may be a couple of kits left in the shop too.

For the first page I went with the pinks as they really fitted with my photos of my Grandma and kids, we spent a lovely day visiting her and being out and about in her home town, and she always treats the kids!  I used some of the Maggie Holmes pockets in my page which I really like as you just slot all the bits in and they are great for making shakers or putting in memorabilia.

I do love woodgrain, and I used the pockets to influence my photo arrangement and make some passport photo style strips.  As the photos were wintry I dusted the page with snowflakes!

I did a messy page too, this uses gesso and then mustard seed distress re-inker for the vibrant yellow, I really like to add some paint as another layer on a page.  This is my youngest making sandcastles with a bucket and spade he had his lunch in - yes fish and chips in a bucket and spade!

Frosty Festivities Blog Hop

Hello and welcome to the Frosty Festivities blog hop organised by Jennifer Grace - it starts and ends with her blog and as always there is an opportunity for a prize including a set of a Lawn Fawn stamps and more - enter to win by commenting on all the blogs in the Frosty Festivities 2015 hop! The giveaway closes on Sunday the 6th of December at 10pm GMT, and is open internationally.

For my frosty post I went with a summer picture of the beautiful mountains in Chamonix.  I started with a white ink pad and a pencil with a rubber on the end and stamped some snow.  I then punched several vellum snowflakes too.  The papers are a mix from Crate Paper from their Wonder, Notes and Things and also Confetti ranges - yes one of each!  I used an October Afternoon chipboard heart that I covered in glossy accents and a little Hobby House snowflake with some golden washi tape.

Here is a picture of the prize pack

Here is a list of everyone taking part in the blog hop

Jennifer - http://jennifergracecreates.com/

Claire N - http://www.creativemakings.co.uk/

Clare B -  http://clarebrowndesign.com/

Daphne - https://dapfniedesign.wordpress.com/

Furrypig - http://chattycraftyartypig.blogspot.co.uk/

Jacky - http://scrappyjackylive.blogspot.co.uk/

Julia - http://juliaheald.blogspot.co.uk/

You are here >>> Katherine - http://fruitofmyscraps.blogspot.co.uk/

Leslie - http://lcsmithsaved-outofthemire.blogspot.co.uk/

Mandysea - http://teacupofscrapisms.blogspot.com.au/

Sheena - http://sheenasscrapsandscribbles.blogspot.co.uk/

Jennifer - http://jennifergracecreates.com/

Your next hop is to Leslie

This Makes me Happy

Earlier in the year we went skating and it happened to coincide with Shaun the Sheep being there to help launch his movie.  We got to make cupcakes  and then Shaun appeared on the ice and for photos - after a bit of debate both the kids decided that Shaun was cool enough to have their photos with!

I over-exposed the photo in the editing software on my phone and printed it 4" square then used a corner rounder (something I've not used in a while!) and made a poloroid style photo mount.  The papers are from Crate Papers Craft Market and a little bit of the Confetti range too (left over my classes at the ATDML retreat) - they are beautiful complete with gold foiling and golden glitter that doesn't come off!  The base of my page was covered in gesso, then ink and embossing powder in greys, blues and golds.  I then drew some circles in pencil around and started to layer up my papers.  I mixed in a material coaster from the pound store and some muslin.  As there were quite a few layers on my page stapling it made it easier to work with and went with the silvery theme too.  The finishing details were some little pearls ands sticker stars.

Borough Market

Here is the page that I did for my first class at the weekend with ATDML - it is with the gorgeous Craft Market papers by Crate Paper - they are even more beautiful in the flesh with gold glitter and gold foiling...and the beautiful wood veneers - they are lovely.  I went with a circle theme inspired by the veneer hoops and used some fabrics and different textures as well as some sequins.

The photos are from a trip to Borough Market which was great, my kids loved being able to explore all the food and get to try it....and then choose what they wanted to eat.  It was a great day out that they enjoyed.

The Hunt

This second page from my class with Ann - some more lovely gold embossing with one of her alphabets - I went a little bit off her layout - I kept the same photo arrangement and enjoyed using all the bits we had left over from the first page - I also love the gold skeleton leaves that were in with the kit.

The page is on the same theme as the first - this is the egg hunt and loads of cousins running around the house hunting for clues and trying to work out what they mean!

Happy

Here is another class from the weekend - this is my first page from Ann Freeman's Crate Paper Confetti class (I did go a bit wrong, but never mind!!).  

There was lots of layering, pleating of tickets, distressing and some gold embossing - I am loving that look at the moment!  I choose the ticket colours to pull out the colours of the eggs in the photos - this is one shot from Easter and the Easter Egg hunt my Mum runs which has the kids running all around the house searching for clues!

You and Me

Another class from the ATDML Cybercrop - this one by Denise Holmes you can find it here - it is called jubilee - there is lots of lovely dimensions and she used Crate Paper and some of my favourite lines for it....I thought I had most of the papers...but it turns out I didn't so here is my improvisation of the class with less flowers and a little more red and blue!

This is just one of those everyday phone photos - of me and my son chilling and looking at my phone after a cycle to the coffee shop!

Also I am on Created by ATDML today with a little bit of a technique post.

The Tree Walk

I'm a bit late in sharing this post with you, I made for the Yellow and Black theme on the Tando Blog...though it is more brown and yellow with a little bit of black!

I started with 2 sorts of yellow paint and a credit card, and then smeared it in a rough square on my card stock, I also sprinkled some glitter into it.  I then set about making my squares and layered up lots of offcuts of papers from Crate Paper and American crafts, I used punching and distressed the edges and added doilies.  I then used lots of little bits of chipboard to add a focal point to the non-photo squares and again I painted these in the yellows - I used 2 flowers, and then a little butterfly that I added some silver glitter to and a button which I added bark lines to with a gel pen.  I then journalled around the edge of my square.

The photos are from the Tree Walk at Kew Gardens - it's a super walk if you don't mind heights.

Flowers for the Ladies

Here are some cards that I made for the Tando blog last week - the theme was ladies, so I went floral in a big way and dug out some of my favourite flowery papers (by Crate Paper).  I layered and stitched them and then used my chipboard flower as the centre piece for the card.  As the flowers are white on one side I didn't prep them in anyway, just got out some co-ordinating mists and gave them a spritz of colour - I really like the dramatic effect and the shimmer which you can't quite see in the photo…so left them at that.  

The mist colours take really well on the white side of the chipboard and it is a really quick but quite dramatic effect that you can create.

Here is my post over at Tando.