Baby Boy Blue | Lou Thompson | One 6x4 photo

Hello scrappers and welcome to my 2nd piece for UKSA. This month's challenge was to make a layout using one 6x4 photo, so style wise, this was very much open to interpretation.

I had this gorgeous blue  and white coloured wooden board page I have been dying to use and remember this cute photo of my nephew I took when he was little. Has has the most amazing blue eyes  and a cute blue fluffy coat on so just goes great with this paper.

I have a few favourite mixed media items currently; Prima Impasto paints and Ranger Oxide inks. I chose a few paints and mixed them with modelling paste. I also took a few oxides in matching colours and used these along with the paste to add stenciling to the background. I am just loving blues and greens at the moment so really love the results.

From there it was fairly easy as I didn't want to loose all this lovely texture so kept it simple. I added die cuts and a journalling card, washi, a wooden circle, a resin flower, some stickers and chipboard alphas, a tassel and a perspex camera and word.

Here are some close ups and please so visit my YouTube channel to see the process. If you enjoy the video, please give me a thumbs up and maybe a comment so I know you like what I am doing :)

Youtube link:

https://youtu.be/beqAvtROCZM

Main Paper, star embellishments, Bramble Fox perspextives, Doodlebug stickers and other similar items available from:

http://thompsoncraftsupplies.co.uk/

Epic Fail | Lisa-Jane Johnson | Journalling

It's Lisa-Jane from Pretty My Page here today with my take on getting some journalling onto our layouts.  I'm the first to admit that although I believe scrapbooking should be about the story as much as anything else, sometimes there just isn't a story to tell, and that's fine.  Other times there is a story and we plan to come back to it and add it, but we don't, and that's fine too (there are no scrapbooking police thank goodness!) I am definitely guilty of this!  So for this challenge I chose a photo that had a definite story attached and I made sure I got it down on the page!

I didn't actually have a plan in mind when I was pulling out some papers to go with the photo.  Then I came across this Pink Paislee paper with the diagonal hand writing on and I was inspired to create something similar with my journalling.  I didn't intend to use the actual paper as it was the wrong sort of grey but I'm glad I happened across it.

I wanted to create the journalling on a slight diagonal like the paper but of course you can't do that with a 12x12 piece as you need a bit of extra real estate to allow for the slant.  Luckily the pattern in the paper worked in any direction so I was able to rotate it slightly to give me enough to cover right across.  I trimmed off the corners and then matched up the top and bottom, and voila - I have a diagonal piece that stretches right the way across.  

I wanted to add a contrasting strip in above and below the main piece but it obviously meant I would have the same problem with it not reaching.  The pattern on this piece couldn't be cut on an angle so I broke the strips and stuck the ends down first which left me with a little strategically placed gap to cover up.  I also added some stencilling to add another subtle layer.  I used the Ranger blending tool and the Grunge stencil from the Pretty My Page shop with some Tim Holtz Pumice Stone Distress Ink because the story was partly about the mess in the house during our first lot of renovations.

Before I set to work on the journalling, I wanted to add in any base layers for the clusters so that I knew how much room I had to work with.  I didn't add the rest of the embellishments until afterwards so I could write without being impeded or getting enamel dots stuck to my elbow...  The dots and hearts are from the Pretty My Page shop and the stick pins and metal studs are very old bits from my stash which always makes me feel good :-)

Typically on the day I did the journalling, my arthritis was quite bad in my hands and they did not want to be flexible and allow me to write neatly at all!  I didn't keep to the right slant on the stop half either and I considered redoing the background but, you know, life's too short!  And anyway, the whole story was to do with mess and chaos things being out of place so it's quite fitting really!  In the picture I was taking a moment to try and focus on the positives of the renovations which hadn't gone very well.  We were almost at the point of getting the bath in so I posted this picture on Facebook to say "yay, we are getting somewhere, it's not so bad, etc".

Then 5 minutes later the children were charging around and not heeding my warnings and consequently tipped over the bath bashing them both on the head and trapping them underneath! My son ended up with a huge egg on his head and my daughter was fine until she realised her big brother was getting all the attention and she started howling too!  I do think it is important to journal the not so good things about life too, don't you?!  The journalling here blends with the design because it was intentional in it's placement and the grey background means that the writing doesn't stick out.  I wish my writing was neater but here it becomes part of the design and I'm happy with that.  

Don't forget to enter the journalling challenge on our Facebook page to be in with a chance of winning the prize draw for vouchers for the Pretty My Page shop and as always, we'd love to see what you create so don't forget to hash tag us!

 Now go forth and make pretty pages!

Happy Here & Now │Gemma Summers │Clustering

Hello, Gemma here with my layout based on our theme for this month, which is Clustering.

I love clustering because I like to use a lot of embellishments on a page as you will see from my layout this month! Having clusters of embellishments helps your eye travel round the page, and I have used them to surround my photo, with one cluster on each side. I chose to base my layout on a selfie of me at my craft desk, which I printed in black and white so I could chose any colour palette for my layout.

I started with a lined paper (I used a lot of the Pebbles 'girl squad' collection for this layout). I went with my photo central and decided to ground the clusters with some mixed media first.

I went with pinks, peaches and coral made using some distress inks and the packaging technique. I then added some splatters and crayon marks. I knew most of this would be covered up but some would still peak through for colour.

Next I could focus on my clusters.

I started by fussy cutting the speech bubbles, trees and raindrops. These elements were all from pattern paper, individually cut and arranged. I backed the speech bubbles onto craft foam to raise them and give the cluster different dimensions. I always start with the bigger elements, then move onto details like the puffy stickers, buttons and roller stamping.

I worked on both clusters at the same time, so they looked balanced and both had all the same elements in them. I stuck to coral, turquoise, black and white.

As the layout is about me, I chose stickers that match me like the backpack, headphones

and the girl puffy sticker even has my hair cut :)

The title was made from turquoise glitter words from Paige Evans, as I like the script font and the colour fits perfectly. It's a recent photo of me so really is 'here and now'. I used stamping in diagonal corners and added a doodle border round the entire page, with black pen.

Don't forget we would love to see your layouts using clustering this month
on our Facebook page and Instagram using #ukscrapaddicts

I hope you enjoyed this layout.

Is your craft desk your happy place too?

See you next month!

Our Getaway │ Gemma Summers │ Large Photo

Hello, Gemma here with my first layout for UK Scrap Addicts!

This month we are focusing on large photos in our layouts, and so I decided to challenge myself with a large 8x12 photo. I went with a big landscape view of our trip to Scotland last year, so the large photo could reflect the beautiful scenery.

I started by cutting into the photo! I trimmed the mountains edge because I had an idea to add to the scene by creating a cloudy blue sky. On some white cardstock I used some distress inks to create the bright blue backdrop. I fussy cut some clouds from Pink Paislee 'summer lights' paper no.05 and also used my cloud die to cut out clouds using paper scraps. I doodled round the edge of them with black and grey pens to help them stand out. 

Once I had stuck my photo on top of the sky layer I began to work on my title, which I placed on the photo. I used the chipboard 'Getaway' from Crate paper's 'Oasis' collection and kept the cluster simple with black enamel dots.

I used the white globe perspextive from Bramble Fox, who is our sponsor this month!

The Layout was looking very blue and green at this point and I love colour so wanted to add some accents in. I went with some small bright buttons, which I glued down and drew lines up to meet the clouds. I think this added some whimsy to the page and worked on a diagonal with the title.

Don't forget we would love to see your layouts using large photos this month
on our Facebook page and Instagram using #ukscrapaddicts

Thanks for joining me today and I hope you enjoyed this layout.

See you next month!

Car Selfie | Jackie Ashton | Sketch

Hello, Jackie here using one of this month's sketches.  I love to use sketches sometimes just to get me started on a layout, others, like this one, following the design but making the layout work for me.

So here's what I did, I decided to reduce the sketch and do a 9x12 one instead.  I love that my albums have a mixture of different sized pages, as well as various pocket pages.

I used a photograph of Sheena and me on our way back from teaching a weekend workshop, hence the title.

After cutting my cardstock down to the required size, I distressed the background using a Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Ink Pad - Broken China, using the packaging technique - adding the ink to a piece of plastic bag and a few drops of water, before applying to the cardstock. Once dry I added a few lightly stamped lines to the background, to give it some visual texture.

I layered the photograph on patterned papers from the new collection by Amy Tangerine - Oh a Whim and added a piece of vellum under the photographs for adding texture.

The stamped image to the top of the photograph was stamped onto plain white cardstock using the same stamp I used for the background.

For the title, I had run out of Es so I used two Fs and cut down an I to form the bottoms of the Es.

To the top right of the layout, I felt that it was an empty space, so I added a few strips of patterned papers and a flair badge I found in my stash.

I finished the layout, by adding a few word stickers around the photographs area, from one of the Simple Stories Collections, wood veneer stars.

Thank you for stopping by

Guest Designer - Caroline Lovett

Today we welcome our second guest for May...

Hi my name is Caroline Lovett and I am the organizer of the Scrapstars craft retreat. I live in Leeds, in the heart of Yorkshire in the UK and I’m an avid Scrapbooker. I was first introduced to scrapbooking in 2003 when I saw a demonstration. I immediately knew it was for me as I had always been the “photographer” whether that was with my family, friends and even going back to my school days. I loved the creative aspect of scrapbooking, and to be honest it was the first craft that I had ever really tried, but also I loved the idea of recording our memories. I even went as far as to have my own shop for a while, where I had the pleasure of introducing and teaching Scrapbooking to lots of people. For the past six years I have organized the retreat to get my extra crafting fix, I love the inspiration the teachers bring with them. I am constantly scrapping and have a number of albums on the go. If I have a lot of photo’s from a “big holiday” I tend to make three or four 12x12 layouts and then slot project life sleeves in to my albums, and use these to store all of the extra photo’s that I take www.scrapstars.co.uk

I was really pleased to be asked to “guest design” for UK Scrap Addicts and when I discovered I would be following a sketch challenge that put me at ease. I find following a sketch takes all the “stress” from Scrapping, all you have to do is find some nice coordinating papers and your half way there. It’s a great way to form the basics of a layout and then you can tweak it to suit yourself. I decided to follow Laura’s sketch, and started by creating a watercolour background. I had seen this effect on a layout by Tracee Provis, and then was lucky enough to be shown how to do it by Morag Cutts at Scrapstars. Take some packaging waste or a cello bag, apply ink pad straight on to it pressing about 3 times, spritz with water and then literally place the cello bag ink side down onto your cardstock, pull away quickly, or if needed press some small areas down with the tip of your finger. I also used kitchen towel, so soak away any “strong” areas.

I’m a fan of mixed media, and am getting braver all the time, I usually think to myself, the worst that can happen is I end up throwing away a piece of card. I believe it was Susan’s who mentioned Gorgeous Grunge (15th April). If you are averse to mess or always feel that spritzing goes everywhere, I can strongly recommend this set, or any other “distress” type stamps, at least the effect is placed exactly where you want it.

The sketch shows a 4x4 photo being used so I cut three coordinating papers from Maggie Holmes - Chasing Dreams, at four and a quarter inches, I inked and layered these, and then reverted to a little fussy cutting. 

Finally I added the tag as in the sketch and various bits and pieces to embellish. It was fun to fussy cut (it’s been a while) and also I dug out some old pins. I tried out a “new to me” product, Nuvo Crystal Drops, which hold there form as they dry and look much like an enamel dot (the black ones on the layout).

I hope that you like the end result, it has been great fun creating it, I hope that you feel brave and decide to splash a little ink around. Thanks for reading, Caroline.

Thanks for joining us today Caroline!