Here's one I prepared earlier...

Hi everyone,
So, this is a layout I started last Friday when I was over at my crafting buddy, Elaine's house. She has recently revitalised her craft room and invested in lots of lovely storage from Ikea. If you were planning a trip there for storage/shelving - don't bother - Elaine already bought it all! LOL! But seriously, it's looking great Elaine, well done! So while I was there we got stuck in to a bit of scrapping (along with a bit of Prosecco swigging) and I got this layout semi-finished. I knew I wanted to do a bit more with it but wasn't sure what so it's been on my table since the weekend waiting to be completed. I wanted to make sure it was colourful and summery so went for some flowers and a cheeky wee bee stamp plus two wee birdies. I stamped the birds onto patterned papers and cut them out, but the bee stamp is coloured with pencils. The papers used were mainly from the Papermania Happy Days 12x12 pad which I'm still loving and there's still loads left so you'll be seeing it again no doubt!

Thanks for taking a look!

Have a lovely crafty weekend everyone,

Jak

xxx

Well, lookie here - I've gone digital!!!

    So, I was just telling my friend Elaine that I was tempted to try a bit of digital scrapping for a change as I felt it would be quick to do seeing as I do this kind of thing all day, everyday at work... she kind of wrinkled her nose at me and said "Yeah but it's not the same as cutting up and gluing down bits of paper..." and yep, I agreed, it's not, but it is a wee change and sometimes a change is as good as a rest (and I think I've had plenty of those of late). So, without too much financial outlay -about 5 or 6 quid - I bought 2 American Crafts digital downloads of their Dear Lizzie Neapolitan embellishments and journalling cards. I picked these as I have a 12x12 paper pad which I really like and thought I could hybrid and mix and match the different mediums by supplementing the paper stack with the printed digital files so that way I get good "value for money" use from my downloads... Anyways, this is my first go at a digital LO and I've not gone too crazy as the temptation is to throw everything at it seeing as you can use the files time and time again unlike real life embellies which once they're gone, they're gone. I quite like the result and it did literally take half an hour to put together.  My verdict: Yes, I will do more digital LO's but it won't stop me from real crafting either as I just love truffling through lovely tactile papers and other bits of crafty treasure. I'm sure there's room for both types of scrapbooking in my life as digital is naturally a solitary thing to enjoy and real scrapping a bit more sociable especially when you're cropping with others or out shopping for stash together with friends... What do you think?

I would recommend trying it out if you like pottering about on you computer...
Thanks for stopping by!
Jak,
xxx

A 12x12 layout...

   Well this one came together quite quickly - it was done in about 2 hours which isn't too bad at all - and after the saga that was my Xmas Mini I find that quite encouraging!!! I think I might do a few 12x12s as I was looking through some photos and came across a few that really do need a page to themselves. Single photo layouts are so much easier to do than pages with multiple piccies as you really get a chance to play about with your scraps of patterned papers and you can have fun mixing and matching different styles of patterns! Cool! The main blue floral paper in this one is from a K & Company paper stack called Bloomscape, which I've hardly touched. Other papers are from Papermania Happy Days and American Crafts Neapolitan - but these are just little scraps from my stash. I must stop buying 12x12 pads as I never use them as whole page backgrounds. Instead I should go for the cheaper 6x6 alternative and that way I could get double the choice for the same price! Hmm! Sounds like a plan/excuse to hit the shops wouldn't you say?

Thanks for taking the time to pop by!
Jak
xxx