The sweetest thing...

...is my little Sadie all wrapped up and ready to go out for a stroll on a Sunday affternoon! Ok, I would need a cattle prod to make them walk anywhere with the grown-ups these days - apparently it's just not cool to be seen hangin' with the olds!!! Oooooh, where did my babies go? Lol! Well, actually they grew up into little girls, then bigger girls. My eldest hits high school after the summer hols - how did that happen? Eeek!! Sadie is still very sweet but if we are walking somewhere now, there has to be a park or some other carrot dangling to get us to our destination. Sadly, gone are the days when we just went out for a stroll to get out and enjoy the fresh air. In fact just getting anywhere these days without world war three breaking out amongst the ranks is pretty impossible. I'm as impatient as they are hopelessly unconcerned with arriving anywhere on time!!! I suppose that's why the elders of the family tell you to enjoy them while they're little, meaning because once they have developed a mind of their own, you've had it!!!. Lol!!
    So, hot off the scrapbooking table this morning comes this:-

   And it originated from this PageMap here -

And as usual, didn't really turn out much like the original at all! Haha! But well, we all need a starting point and sometimes looking through magazines etc. doesn't help me much as a lot of LO's have everything but the kitchen sink stuck to them and it's hard to get a handle on where to start but that's probably just me. Don't get me wrong, I do love those gorgeously layered pages they are a feast to behold but I bet they take forever to put together and goodness knows sometimes it takes me long enough to get this simpler style done!

    With this one I had intended to go all monochromatic with just the background as the main colour but it just wasn't coming together easily and I thought it might look a bit rubbish anyway once it was finished. Who wants to waste their time and stash making a dog's dinner? So I started introducing a bit of colour here and there and ended up where I always do, i.e. in my comfort zone but maybe a bit more muted than usual.

    I've used Anna Griffin lace stamps round the edge of the 12x12 cardstock and round the photo itself. I think that took the longest to do as you have to cut the corners accurately at a 45 degree angle so they make a frame with mitred edges. Mine haven't matched exactly at the corners but that's ok - it would take too long to figure that bit out. Back in the old days when graphic designers did everything at a tilted board with a parallel motion I'm sure that could have been achieved a bit more easily but y'know, that's not what scrapbooking's about. Not for me anyway. It's about the spontaneity of watching a page evolve as you are going - I never know what a page is going to turn out like when I set out. I start off with a pic or two, knowing I want to use certain products and that generally leads the way. The more time I want to give to the layout then the more intricate and layered it becomes. The thing that's most important for me is that the photo doesn't get lost under heaps of other visuals that make you wonder what the main focus of the page is.

    The huge chipboard flower at the top left is from a kit I bought a long time ago. It's from Prima and came in a set that had a 12x12 sheet of stamps and matching diecut shapes in chipboard and corrugated cardboard. It's great to rediscover old stash! Who knows what else might be lurking at the back of my craft shelves...

    Have a happy Sunday all, get rocking those PageMaps!!!

Love,  Jak

xxx

Page Maps part 2...

Hello again,
So, here's my second Page Maps inspired LO. This time I've used a different one and I chose it because it was a 3 photo layout. I love multi photo layouts, but they can get a bit busy on the eyes if the photos wander all over the page - but with this style of LO the photo's are all contained within one panel which is a bit easier to take in visually. I've kept to a strict colour palette which was kind of selected for me when I decided to use the cat themed patterned paper as the main layer behind the photo mat. You know, sometimes I like to be quite tight and strict about these things and then sometimes I feel like I really need to go crazy and "pig-out" with patterns/colours/kitchen sink etc. Don't know what that says about me and my style of scrapping but I think I just like to see what happens as I go I suppose...
    When I started this one I knew I didn't have any flowers that would go with it and that's where my little friend the Silhouette Portrait came in so handy, because I could match the cardstock to the colours in the patterned papers. I drew the flowers and main title in Adobe Illustrator and saved them as a dfx file which the Portrait could cut.  The border along the top and bottom of the page was purchased at the Silhouette store for 54p - bargain! Sometimes I wonder how I ever managed without my Portrait ...
    The flowers were looking a bit ordinary when I was arranging them on the page so I tarted them up with white dots and a 3d pearly centre. Done! I'm wondering if I could use the leftover cardstock from the diecut flowers as a stencil for something as it looks like it could probably come in handy for something... hmmmm...

Heres the pagemap I used from pagemaps.com

A close up of the yummy little flowers I cut out with the Silhouette.

Thankyou for looking. I hope I've inspired you to try some pagemaps to help you out with your scrapbooking pages. Happy Crafting everyone!

Love Jacqui

xxx

Page Maps revisited...

Well hello!
I can't believe it's been so long since I uploaded anything new - things have been more than a bit busy of late - the girls have had their Easter holidays, Sadie's had her 8th birthday and all the rest of the stuff that life throws at us from time to time. Sadly, I missed an opportunity for a get together with my Scrapping buddy Elaine due to unforeseen circumstances but I haven't been idle - oh no!
    So, I was having a mooch around online as you do and I thought I would check out the old PageMaps website as I literally hadn't been near it in donkey's years and I just thought it might be a good idea to try out a layout or two to get the old Mojo in gear and so here's one I liked and have used for my Happy Birthday LO.

http://pagemaps.com/ - this one's from Jan 2014

This is my version!

A close up of a wee pinwheel embellishment!

I cut part of this title with my Silhouette. 

The mini bunting is made with K & Company Smash Washi tape

I really enjoyed using the pagemap layout and it meant I didn't do too much faffing as it was designed (sort of) already... I'm defo gonna use some more of them. In fact I have another page ready to put up once it's all dried and journaled. If I get up before the kids tomorrow I'll upload it while I get the chance to get on the computer. It's constantly being hogged lately to watch episodes of Adventuretime which seems to be the new fad round here at the moment!! Anyone out there know who the Lumpy Space Princess is????

See you back here for more tomoz - hopefully!

Love,  Jak

xxx

Sadie's Little Blund Bear...

Good Sunday morning Happy Crafters!
    So, first off I'll apologise for the not too great photo. I'll admit I didn't try very hard with it as I wanted to get the page into an album pronto - Pabs the Paper Muncher was hanging about licking his kitty lips - he had his beady eyes on the paper rosettes and if it didn't disappear from his line of vision it was gonna be chomped! This is a LO dedicated to Chewing Bear! He's Sadie's little Blund Bear from Ikea and he was given to her as a baby from a friend or relly I cant exactly recall who... He's always been her favourite and was a constant companion while she was teething. She used to crawl around, carrying this bear in her gummy mouth which was really cute and why he got the name of Chewing Bear! Two weeks away from being 8, he still goes to bed with her! Apparently these little bears have a bit of a cult status online whereby Blund Bear fans take pics of him in far off places on various travels and upload them on to the t'internet! Daft but entertaining! Anyhoo, I thought the pic (although a bit dark on this photo) was sweet and wanted to try out a LO with it. The background paper is K & Company Bloomscape and some of the other papers are from a Colorbok kit I bought ohhh -  a good 4 years ago probably. It was on sale at QVC and although I liked it a lot at the time, I outgrew it quite soon afterwards. However, I really like it for adding a good splash of colour here and there as it had lots of diecut elements that keep coming in handy. I wanted to try out a folded paper strips technique for the photo frame and apart from the corners not really matching up (ah well!) I liked the end result. I'll maybe try it again with papers that have a less bold design...

Pablo thought the paper rosettes looked especially tasty!

I hope the bright colours bring some cheer to a drab Sunday!
Thanks for swinging by,
Jak
xxx

New bits & bobs...

First off we have a real as in not digital LO. Nothing too groundbreaking but a memory made by my own loving hands and added to the scrapbook... Poor Sadie always seemed to be poorly as a baby - nothing serious just lots of viruses and everything that goes with that! This is a memory of one such incidence - her poor little face was just so sore with all the noseblowing and constant wiping! She was always happy though even when she felt rotten! Poor babe!

Next up is a digital LO that I did for the DoCrafts March Scrapbook challenge. Here's the sketch and brief -

 

 

Theme Pets or Animals in general and if you don't fancy those you can choose Spring.

Colours to suit your choice of theme.

I decided to go with pets and used a pic of my Pablo Naughty Boy. As I was getting on with it I really wasn't enjoying the landscape A4 format so I ended up doing it 12x12... here's how it turned out.

 

 

 

They're not that much different I know but I'm just conditioned to prefer 12x12 - probably because it's the format I started out with. I've brainwashed myself lol!

Next up - a Mothers Day card. I actually made two of these - one for my mummy one for Leon's!

 

Happy Mother's Day!

The main paper (the floral one) is Papermania Happy Days again and although I bought this maybe nearly a year ago now, it's still one of my favourite card stacks ever! I think the glue was still drying on it as I was handing it over. Nothing like a bit of pressure to get things done on time eh?

Happy crafting everyone!

Thanks for coming to see me here,

Jak

xxx

Real paper things...

...I made these recently - one's a loo roll mini and the other a card for a colleague who is leaving to work abroad.

Still love making these for folks - always warmly received!

Have a safe trip Lucy!

    This mini was decorated mainly with some leftover sheets from an old K and Company pad called Wild Saffron. I loved that pad and it's almost all used up now. I really liked the colours in it - bright but earthy at the same time - gorgeous! Wonder if it's still available?
     The card was made using a MAMBI prefolded card stack pack I got at TK Maxx - a snip for £3.99 and a good buy as it makes 24 cards (eventually!) all lovely monochromatic designs like this one. The fox, flower and background wording stamps were from a set that came with Get Stamping magazine. That was another really good buy as I use these stamps a lot. Don't know if any of you got these too but I love the funky designs that came in this set. There's even a cute moustache!!!
     Well, it's a lovely sunny day this Saturday morning and I must spend a bit of time in the garden - it badly needs a bit of TLC so that's my mission for the weekend. We had a very mild winter this year so the weeds didn't actually stop growing and the garden has suffered.  It's always a job worth doing tho' as it looks so nice when it's all neat and tidy...

Have fun however you creatively spend it!
Love
Jak
xxxx

Sunday morning catch-up!

Hi all,
It's been a busy week as usual here. Millie is rehearsing for the school musical and doing a lot of induction stuff up at the high school she is going to after the summer hols! Sadie is doing various after school activities which means a bit of to-ing and fro-ing also. I had a lovely little catch-up this week with my cousin from Hull who came to stay with my mum for a few days - Hi Joan! So busy blethering we forgot to take any photos tho - tut! Was lovely to remember all those family connections and fun times at gran and grandad's!
    Talking of photos tho, I recently changed my phone and downloaded all my old photos from it onto the computer. Mostly they're not that good (nothing new there then!) but they do seem to be fine for digital scrapping which is handy as I seem to be on a roll with that just now!
    I recently managed to download some free kraft papers and corrie card bits and pieces which will come in handy. I think I like my digital LOs to look realistic just like they are done by hand the traditional way. I'm gonna print them out 8x8 size and put them in an album I have so they don't get forgotten about on my Mac.
    Here's my latest....

Yum !

Happy Sunday all - hope you manage to fit in a bit of crafting today!
Jak
xxx