Three Papers, Three Pages

I had a day of scrapbooking yesterday. It was my treat to myself for my birthday since I am now closer to 40 than 30.
I started with a leftover from last week's craft club in the form of a 3d decoparge design that I wanted to try and get onto a layout. This is what I came up with.

The papers are from My Minds Eye's Good Day Sunshine collection. I picked out three designs from the range when I had a bit of a splurge earlier in the year. I added some Crate Paper stickers that had been in my stash for ages, kraft cardstock and alpha stickers. The photo is of some of the amazing chainsaw sculpture in my local park.

When I had finished this page I decided that I'd do another layout with the same papers.

I went for a darker background for this one and some more alpha stickers. When I had the photos from our trip to the zoo printed I had this one printed larger because I really wanted to do a page with this title, advertising as a lot to answer for!

By this point I only had a little of the papers left and rather than putting them into my scrap box I decided to make a third LO.

I went back to my original alpha stickers for this one and based it on a greenish background. The photo was cut down from 6x4 to loose some of the background (I didn't take it) and to concentrate attention on the cat in the box. More of the Crate Paper stickers and a button finished the page.

So three pages finished from the three papers I started with and only the smallest of scraps left over. All in all a good day's work.

Playtime

At this week's Craft Cub we got a pack of papers and other bits from the Moorish range by Craftwork Cards and whilst everyone else got stuck in to making cards I decided to get scrapping. Obviously because I was using a selection intended for card making I had to fiddle around a bit but with only the addition of white cardstock, letter stickers and some pearls I was able to create this LO.
The papers were 8x8 which seeing that I only had 3 to choose from was a bit of a challenge but I decided that by using a larger photo (7x5) I could get away with using most of one of the papers in one piece and then split the other to cover more of my background. Carefully placed embellishments cover wording on the horizontal vellum banner. The diecut embellishments are sentiments with the wording covered up with extra bits cut from the sheet, the scalloped circles are punched from paper and from the textured cardstock from this range.

This is not a range I would have choosen myself but I am pleased with the outcome.

Teenage Dreams

So here is the result of the second starting point in my last post (I'm posting like this to make linking to this image easier) and again it features a photo from my teenage years.
This time it is a photo of me sat on my bed at about the time of my nineteenth birthday. Now I could write reams about what the photo brought to mind in terms of my appearance, my bedroom and even the blue hippo I am posing with (a hippo that I still on all be it relegated to a storage crate in the loft). However for some reason while I was pushing paper and photo around I got a song stuck in my head and it inspired me to go with the title Teenage Dreams and to write about how although my life hasn't really lived up to those dreams I am in many ways more fulfilled than I could have ever imagined. Profound or what? LOL

I added a couple of extra paper pieces to Shimelle's starting point http://www.shimelle.com/paper/1422/scrapbooking-starting-point-you-can-count-on-the-girls/ and then layed punched shapes and stickers to accent it. My final touch was some butterflies cut from another paper in the range (butterflies seem to be a big thing with me at the moment).

Friends and Other Starting Points

I have been scrapping this week. My first LO I'll not be sharing because it is for a chinese whispers challenge but the others are fair game.
I recently signed up for another online class from the very talented Shimelle Laine over at Two Peas in a Bucket and certain things have given my scrapping a new lease of life one of those is starting points.
The idea of a starting point is that you stick papers onto a page in a certain arrangement and then take the finished page from there. So no planning everything out in advance etc. I was a bit sceptical as to whether it would work for me but it did and I am converted.

This first starting point came from a Glitter Girl class over on Two Peas a few weeks ago.
I choose to use some papers that I have had in my stash for ages by My Minds Eye. I still liked them but never thought that they went with any photos I wanted to scrap. Using them this way and starting the page before I picked photos and theme meant that they have finally made it into an album (well almost the LO is still on my desk at the moment).
I decided to go with this slightly blurry original photo of me and my oldest friend back when we were at school. It's not the best quality photo but seeing as then as now I was usually the one behind the camera it is quite rare and allowed me to reflect on our friendship.
I diecut shapes from the same papers and added embellishments in line with some of the other lessons I have been learning from Shimelle, repeating elements and colours in different spots around the page for one. This actually took some cunning because I only had two stickers with the green that I wanted to use so by cutting one into two pieces I was still able to get it into three places. And considering I had no idea where this page was going when I began I love how it turned out.

For my second starting point I used the latest one from Shimelle's blog.

And more papers that never got used when I was consciously picking papers to go with photos this time by Prima. I did use these papers once on the clock I decorated for my craft room but since then they had languished in my stash. That was about to change.

Getting Away From It All

I've not done a lot of crafting so far this month but I did do some getting away from it all. Right here in this lovely lochside lodge in beautiful Scotland.

Yes that is the loch literally right outside the building and while taking this photo I was stood on our own private beach. So a private beach in Scotland, in March, doesn't compare to one in the caribbean but it was heavenly to us. And standing on the deck in a morning feeding the swans and ducks was a great way to start the day.

It should also be kick starting my creativity. I took loads of photos and who wouldn't when faced with such glorious scenery?
Like this for instance.

This was the view from our bedroom balcony. I can't wait to go again.