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

When Millie met Jacky...

Hello all,
   
Here's my latest digital offering...
    My eldest daughter was invited to take part in a Q & A feature for The Official Jacqueline Wilson Magazine a couple of years ago. We had a lovely day at Edinburgh Book Festival and met Jacky who was just a delight, a really lovely lady. You can tell she really cares about her readers - she gave an hour's talk to a packed out marquee answering lots of questions from the audience and after a book signing session it was our turn for a private meeting with her. We decided we couldn't go empty handed so we made her a name plate for her office and took her cat Jacob a cat toy which Jacqueline was thrilled with. It was a great day!

Jacqueline loved her gifts!

I designed a lot of the digital elements on this page myself supplementing them with elements I bought from AC Digitals. I hope you like it!
Thankyou to all who keep visiting my little blog,
Love,
Jak
xxx

Good Morning Sunday!

Hey everyone,
I've been itching to try another digital LO so I got up nice and early this morning to try one out... I started with a 12x12 chevron pattern I made in Adobe Illustrator - the blue colour was picked to contrast with the sweet sugary colours of the American Crafts kit I bought. Sometimes a subtle contrast of colour really helps your elements stand out rather than just coordinate!

Lovely digital elements By ACDigitals Dear Lizzy Neapolitan!

Going digital definitely has it's advantages round these parts, by which I mean - no sharing a table with a naughty kitty who tries to steal every scrap of paper left unattended! He is a very naughty cat and there have been times when I have left a LO overnight only to return to it the next day to find it completely "rearranged" "edited" or just plain eaten! Pablo is obsessed with everything that goes on at that table, bless! I have tried lots of ways to amuse/distract him while I'm there which has only gone on to make him worse because I think he associates me being there with Pablo playtime! I even tried a nice comfy cushion so he could cosy down and watch me do my thing there but no - as soon as my back is turned something gets swiped!!! Last year he completely sabotaged a minibook I was making for my sister by eating 2 paper greyhound shapes I'd cut out for it!

Gorgeous but BAD!

- Here he is in his usual stance - sitting on whatever project I'm working on trying to chomp the corners off. He is lovely but v. bad  and would challenge even Jackson Galaxy's cat whispering ways! Just the other day I was trying to do a messy background with gesso and shimmer sprays and he walked right through the wet gesso and left his catty pawprints both on my project and beyond! Honestly!!!
Anyway, I hope you like my digital endeavor and I hope it makes you want to try it too - don't feel too guilty about deserting your real life stash temporarily! I don't, I see it as just another way of getting those pages done quickly and without falling out with my cat!LOL!
Happy Sunday Crafting everyone!
Jak
xxx

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