Happy Christmas!

This is a page I've made using a photo of my own tree. Used Sahlin studio and Kaymee Designs kits.

Wishing Everyone a Very Merry christmas and A Happy New Year! :)

In a Word Challenge #2 - WINNER!

It was a hard choice, but I finally settled on this one by Patricia (wickedred). I love the fact that she used photos of her own tree decorations. Fab page :)

Thank you everyone for entering. The next challenge will go up on 5th January, when we will have a new word chosen by Patricia.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE! xxx

Saturday Spotlight Wk 12

Welcome to The Saturday Spotlight!

This week's page is called 'Xmas in Australia and is by rachelbm (Barb). This is just so different, I absolutely love the LO and the B&W photo with just the red of Santa's suit picked out is great!

Have a look at her gallery on Daisytrail. She has some gorgeous pages.

"This photo is of my grandson, his first time seeing Santa. As you can see, he just wanted to get back into Grandma's arms!

At christmas the rural fire brigade dress up as Santa and go around the streets getting donations to help with the bad fires Australia has in the summer.

The red on the page is fire, green is Australia and the yellow is the sun.

Kit is by Miss Vivi and is called 'Funky Town'.

I am 57 years old and a mum of 2.  And sad to say now a mum of one.

I have a beautiful grandson that I scrap all the time as you can see.

I come from New Zealand, I moved to Australia in 1981, after 4 years in New guinea.

I 've been scrapping for 8 years now and love it, have come 2nd in Brisbane scrapbooking expo for my work. Also had 4 of my pages published in Scrapbooking Memories magazine.

I now do S4H from home, for people who have lost loved ones".

Thank you for sharing x

Sika Deer

This is the latest photo taken by my son Matt. I am so proud of his talent for photography and always try to scrap a page of his more eye catching pictures. This is a Sika deer and no, I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been told lol.

I've tried to keep the page looking natural and fresh. The photo had another deer behind this one which was blurry, so I've used masking to keep the main subject the focus of the page.

 Credits to Sahlin Studio Dianne Rooney and Valerie Wibbens.

'In a Word' Challenge #2

This time our word is BAUBLES and was chosen by our previous winner, Helen. I am really glad she chose a Christmassy one!

So, the rules are simple. Scrap the word in your own way with images and kits of your choice. Then put a link to your page in the comments section. Or DT members, let me know when you upload your page and I'll grab it from the gallery.

The challenge will run until  Sunday 22nd December. The winner will then choose a word for the following challenge. Thank you for playing along :) x

Helen has very kindly provided us with an example page - which is beautiful and should give plenty of inspiration.

Our first entry this time is this fun page from Jenny (jennyjennyjenny).

 Love the idea of 'pick your own' baubles lol!

This gorgeous vintage page is by Sam (westie1)

Love these baubles by Rena (RMC) especially the cat one! :)

This page is by Dawn (DB52) Love the festive feel to this :)

This gorgeous entry is from Patricia (wickedred). The decs are the ones from her tree! Brilliant.

This page is so sweet, I love the dogs! By Helen (hcd).

Challenge Winner!

After lots of deliberation (and help from hubby lol), I finally settled on the adorable penguins by Helen (hcd) :)

Well done Helen and thank you to all who entered. Once Helen has let me know her choice of word for the next challenge, I will post it here. Thanks again,  all of your pages were great and it was very hard to choose x

Saturday Spotlight Wk 11

Welcome to The Saturday Spotlight!

This week's page is by Margaret (lady_mags). I love the 'in the moment' photo and the way she's picked out colour and used it in the LO.

More of Margaret's work can be seen on Daisytrail.

"This page is of my son Kevin's (he is on the right of the photo) wedding day on Feb 18th 2011.

This photo is of him, his son and his best man portrays to me the start of such a happy day, but also my son was carrying his son Jake's lunchbox because Jake didn't want to eat the food at the reception so took his own lunch. I just find it so funny the groom walking up the path to this beautiful castle to get married carrying a lunch box!

My inspiration is that it is such a happy, natural photo.

The kit I've used is Courtney's Digiscrappin 'Dreaming of Fall'

I am66 years old and come from cumbria. I started crafting about eight years ago making cards, but changed to digital crafting 18 months ago and just love every moment creating pages. I am totally addicted!! "

Thank you Margaret x

.

Stretch!

This is another one on my son, Matt's photos. He took it in our back garden this summer and it's a young fox just waking up and stretching. Of course, he had no idea that Matt was there - he'd been sitting and watching for a couple of hours. 

He has more patience than me lol.

I know lots of people don't like foxes, but we love our little family of them. Every year they have 2 or 3 cubs and it's so lovely to watch them playing and growing up. 

Credits to: Sahlin studio, One Little Bird and Valerie wibbens.

WOYWW 225

Welcome to this week's WOYWW. Hosted by Julia over at The Stamping Ground.

I missed last week due to life becoming rather busy.

This week is also a bit hectic - mostly with Buzzbee Designs, craft fairs etc. But I did find time to do a couple of digi scrap pages.

Just a note on my attempt at a photo a day through November. I have to admit failure on a grand scale lol. I think I only got to day 10, then gave up. Turns out I don't have the self discipline I thought I did. In fact, I now admire very much the people that do pull it off. How do they do it? My life gets in the way big time and it became such a chore.....oh well, back to the digi-scrapping!

This first LO is of Poppy in the leaves when we were out geocaching and the second LO is a very nostalgic one of me and my cousin at Christmas 1969!

Thank you for dropping in. I will get around as many desks as I can this evening. Happy WOYWW everyone! xxx

Pure Nostalgia

I have to share this new kit from Sahlin Studio. It's called Santa's workshop and is soooo absolutely retro! I think that anyone who remembers Christmas as a child in the 60's and 70's will relate to it.

I have to be honest and say that I rarely go for the whole retro thing, but this took me back to my childhood with such clarity, I fell in love with it :)

I've used it to scrap this page of me and my cousin at Christmas in 1969!. Such a magical time and impossible to recapture...but I've had a good try lol.

I've made the material sheets into panels as they remind me so much of the wrapping paper at the time. The Father Christmas character is exactly how I remember him too!

 I have no idea why I look worried as Christmas was always a very happy time...although I did always fear meeting the actual 'real' Santa (I wasn't good with strangers lol).

Saturday Spotlight Wk 10

Welcome to The Saturday Spotlight!

This week's beautiful page is by Linda (truofheart)

I just love the way she's framed the gorgeous family photo and the embellishments are great.

Pop over to Daisytrail to view more of Linda's work.

" This is my nephew and his family and they had a friend take these amazing photos, but I wasn't happy with the background so I replaced it. The kit used for the project was Falling Leaves Autumn Tea by Lori Davison. I don't think Lori has ever made a kit I didn't love!

I am a mother of 2 great children, a Grandmother and a Great-grandmother. I am single and live in Florida, USA.

I started  digital scrapbooking about 3 years ago. I had a brief break and now I am back with the new Craft Artist 2"

Thank you for sharing Linda x

Poppy and The Leaves

I've created this for a challenge on Daisytrail. The requirements are to produce a traditional style scrapbook page featuring leaves. 

At the weekend, we went geocaching and came across this really pretty bridle path. The leaves were deep and crunchy and just asking to be walked through.

Poppy was really funny running around and catching imaginary creatures in them! I took loads of photos, but only had my phone camera and most of them were blurry. But I love this one of her looking all manic and wide eyed lol.

I've used a mask (Diane Rooney) to create the BG picture, then added stitching and layering. I've done a few pages like this recently and I'm loving the textured effect it gives. I also put a slight shadow on the journalling to make it stand out. A big no no to some digi scrappers, but I like the effect ;)

I used a kit called Remember September by Amy Wolff and the leaves are from Alvetina. 

New Challenge!

I am going to try and reinstate the 'In a Word' challenge that I used to run on Daisytrail. I don't know if anyone will be interested in taking part, but I am going to have a go as I think it will be fun! :)

So to start us off, I have chosen this weeks word which is 'FRIENDSHIP' The idea is that you scrap the word in whatever way you like, just go with what the word means to you and using whatever kits and photos you choose.

The challenge will run for 2 weeks - finishing on the 8th December. When the winning page will be posted on my blog. The winner will then choose the word for the next challenge.

This is my take on 'Friendship' credits to: Sahlin studio and Amy Wolff. Image from Canstock.

To take part in the challenge - post a link to your page in the comments section of this post. I can then 'grab' your page and display it here. 

This is our first entry by Jackie (jacloves2craft). With her adorable dogs Max and Milly. She has a Poppy dog! Thank you for taking part Jackie x

This page is from Paul (howard-ph1) I'm loving the meerkats! Thanks for playing along Paul x

This is by Sam (1westie) Love the blending on this. Thank you Sam x

This one is by Rosabelle (rosabelle1944). Sooo sweet!. Thank you x

We have another entry! ... from Helen (hcd) You gotta love those penguins lol x

This is the sweetest image! Page by Rena (RMC) X

Saturday Spotlight Wk 9

Welcome to The Saturday Spotlight!

This weeks gorgeous page is by Helen (hcd). 

I love the cut out and the image is so lovely. I really like the circular framing too.

To view more of Helen's work, pop over to  Daisytrail

"The page was created for a 'Puppy Love' challenge. The extracted image is a friend's granddaughter as she fell in love with some six week old retriever puppies...must admit I did too!
I used Sahlin Studio's kit 'So This is Love' and created the hearts and frames using Craft artist 2 tools and effects.

Originally a traditional scrapper, I began the digital form in 2012 after I discovered craft Artist and the social scrapping site, Daisytrail. I'm loving the flexible and no mess attributes and i'm constantly amazed at what can be achieved.
Entering challenges, seeing many amazing pages and receiving encouraging feedback inspired me to learn more.
Retired from teaching, digital scrapping is the perfect hobby and has connected me to a wonderful world of creativity."

Thank you Helen :)

WOYWW 233

Well it feels odd that I missed this last week - and i've only been desk hopping for a few weeks!

Anyway, back now. Pop over to The Stamping Ground for all the info about WOYWW :)

At the moment I'm working on a real actual glue and paper scrap book page! But still found time to do 2 digital ones. I have also been fortunate to be working on 2 more commissions for Buzzbee Designs. So very busy at the mo.

This first page is of my son trying to get the perfect shot of the storm we had a few weeks ago in the UK. Totally mad isn't he? But he got some awesome photos lol.

Credits: Sahlin Studio and Laurie Ann.

This next page is a little message for my lovely stepdaughter, Hollie.

Credits: Amy Wolff, Valerie Wibbens, one little bird.

A huge heartfelt thank you to everyone that visits and leaves a comment. It means such a lot. Will get round as many desks as I can this evening after work. Happy Hopping! xxx

The Photographer!

I quite often use my son's (Matt) photos in my work, so this is a picture of my son actually taking the photo! He is taking a photo that I used for my page called Storm Warning.

I created lots of textured layers and used one of Matt's own photos blended into the BG.

I used a 3D effect on the wording to make it look a bit watery. Not sure it worked, but I'm happy with the effect.

I've used kits called 'Sea Breeze' by Laurie Ann and 'Count The Waves' by Sahlin Studio :)

Saturday Spotlight Wk 8

Welcome to The Saturday Spotlight!

This week's page is 'Charlie' by Joanne Dix (treacletart).

This is such a special page. It's bright, cheerful and bright and such a fabulous celebration of this brave little boy's life. 

More of Joanne's work is available to view on Daisytrail.

"My page was made in honour of my friend Dianne's grandson, Charlie Cookson.

I had only known Dianne for a little while after meeting her at our local market, where she has a fund raising stall for Charlie.

I learned that Charlie was born 2.5 years ago with meningitis and a host of other problems. He had been practically living in hospital since then, and his family was busy raising funds so his home could be made suitable for him...the downstairs needed to be converted as he was getting too heavy to be constantly carried upstairs.

As the weeks went on, I became a regular at the stall, and was keen to start helping. Then just a couple of weeks ago, I heard the sad news that little Charlie had passed away. I started looking through the photos of him on his Facebook page - Cookies Corner, and knew that I wanted to do some scrapbook pages of him...his beautiful smile and amazing spirit just shone out of every photo.

I chose a kit called Little Monsters as Charlie's nickname was cookie...and the blue Sesame Street Cookie Monster was the logo on his page.

As for me, I am Scottish, living in England, and have been scrapbooking for about 10 years now.

I am 42, married, with 2 teenage boys and 6 daft cats.

I got into digital scrapbooking as I was finding paper scrapbooking too expensive...and had a worrying tendency to hoard papers rather than using them!"

Thank you Jo for sharing your page and moving story x

More November Pics

Well this is proving harder than I thought it would be! Taking the photo every day is ok, it's REMEMBERING to take the photos every day that's hard. I am having to put notices everywhere to remind myself lol. I am really looking forward to putting a page together using all the photos so I have to keep going!

Anyway, here a few more...

Day 5 - The children at work did some firework pictures. Lots of fun and we all got very messy! 

Day 6 - We are studying Kandinski's work at school and I love the paintings the children did.

Day 7 - I came home to find Matts camera set up in the conservatory. He had been trying (failed unfortunately) to get a photo of a sparrow hawk in our garden.
You may have spotted that this picture is marked Day 6...ignore that, it's Day 7 lol.

Day 8 - Poppy and I took Matt back to Southampton. This is the fir cone that Poppy always pinches out of the fire  place in matt's flat :) 

Day 9 - A refreshing morning walk on the beach in beautiful sunshine. And missing Matt. It always takes me a few days to adjust to him not being around :(

Day 10 - Spent a lovely day shopping and having lunch with Paul at Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth.

Self Expression

This is a page I've made for a challenge on Daisytrail. The original image of the girl is from Canstock. I rarely do stuff that isn't using my own (or Matt's) photos as my digital scrapbooking is first and foremost a personal record of mine and my family's life.

However, occasionally I like to simply create something a bit different. When I need an image, I always use Canstock Photos - an online image library. You do pay a small fee for each image, but once purchased I can use it as often as I like and don't have to worry about copyright.

Anyway, I cut out the girl and applied metropolis effect, using the sliders until I reached the subtleness I was after. Then I converted the image to B&W. The BG is a blend of the original photo and a wall effect from Ancestral Tree - a kit by Daisytrail. Oh and the girl also has a shadow added to lift her off the page a little.

The writing, hearts and kisses are simply achieved by adding a stamping effect. Then I added paint splats and voila, this was the end result! 

Used elements from Daisytrail and Amy Wolff x

Saturday Spotlight Wk 7

Welcome to The Saturday Spotlight!

This week I've chosen 'Poppy'  by Anita (Bloggs).

I thought it was apt for this weekend with it's Poppy theme. I just love the effect she has achieved with this. And she's made the page using her own designed digi kit! A very talented lady :)

You can view more of Anita's gorgeous work at Daisytrail.

" I work as a medical receptionist. I created the page to show the different effects that can be achieved from one kit.

I was so pleased to see that the kit I made is used frequently and at this time of year on Remembrance day, it comes into it's own.

The kit is called 'Poppies', my favourite flower. I have only ever made freebie kits.

I have always loved designing things ever since I was a little girl...I remember  making a ballet  theatre when I was 5 and I took the  magnets out of my brother's 'Wembley kit' and stuck them on the bottom of the ballerinas and used the magnetic sticks to move them around the stage, much to his 'HORROR'!

I have been a member of Daisytrail for over 4 years now and knew nothing about digital scrapbooking when I joined. I'm still learning and enjoying every minute, and showing my Granddaughters how to enjoy it too.

Thought you might like to know how the effect was achieved - I made a copy of the page and changed the tone of the top page, then used 'colour burn' blend mode on top xx"

Thank you very much for sharing Anita :) x

Heartbeat At My Feet

Feeling soppy today...so I did this page of my Cavalier King Charles, Poppy. I love her expression here. She was actually standing on a log pile looking for squirrels lol!

I cut her out then blended her onto the BG using radial. Then blended again using hard light. I've used a pale colour for the whole thing as I wanted it to look soft and dreamy.  I then added the elements and stamp effects.

 Used a beautiful kit from One Little bird called Heartbeat at my feet :)

WOYWW 231

So...it's Wednesday again.Time to travel around cyber space and drop in on fellow crafters around the world :) Confused? Pop over to Julia's blog for an explanation.

This week I've actually done some REAL paper and glue crafting! I made these cards using last year's Christmas cards. The little embellishments were made on my trusty Cricut and the sentiments on the computer.

I couldn't go a whole week without doing any digital stuff, so made this! The pony is one my mum befriended on holiday in scotland last week. He is so gorgeous i just had to do a page for him lol.

Used kits by Aquarius Designs, amy Wolff and Valerie Wibbens.

I 'm not sure how many desks I will get around this time as I have a busy day ahead. But I will visit as many as I can. Thank you to everyone that visits me. Your comments mean a lot. 

Happy WOYWW! xxx

Remember November

Well I've done the first 4 days! Good fun so far :)

Day 1 - Some fallen leaves in the garden

Day 2 - Geocaching in the rain along the canal at Chichester.

Day 3 - Poppy on a wood pile in the 100 acre woods at Wickham.

Day 4 - Back at work after half term. My work colleague in the classroom.

Still not entirely sure what I will do with the pics at the end of the month lol. Any ideas or suggestions for how to present them, very welcome :) x

Cheeky Chappy!

My mum met this gorgeous shetland pony on holiday in Scotland. I had to 'scrap' him as he is adorable and so obviously full of character.

I wanted the page to be outdoorsy and full of texture, which is why I've gone for stitching and wire etc. I've used the splats to represent the mud! I kept to Autumnal colours to compliment the pony's colour and finished off by cutting out his nose so that it would look like he was coming out of the photo!

I've used elements from kits by Aquarius, Amy Wolff and Valerie Wibbens :)

Saturday Spotlight Wk 6

Welcome to The Saturday Spotlight!

This week's page is 'Too Cute to Spook' by Heather (Algera).

This is just so sweet and I love that colour! It makes a change from the traditional orange and black Halloween colours. I also love the composition which sort of takes on the spider's web shape. Love it Heather! 

Heather also designs her own kits and you can have a look at her creations at http://algeradesigns.blogspot.co.uk/. 

"This page was created by Heather known as Algera at Daisytrail.

It has two papers blended together to achieve the bright pink tones. I also wanted the viewers eye to be drawn to the cute photo and so worked on layering and applying shadow to some of the elements. Adding some curved text also added an extra touch of interest to the photo.

I have used one of my own kits 'Halloween Treat' to create it.

I have been digi crafting for several years now and just love the freedom of expression it gives me. Being able to combine an interest in photography, design, crafting and art keeps me really busy and wishing there were more hours in the day."

Thank you very much for sharing Heather x

Remember November!

OK so it's a bit of a silly title, but what I want to do is document November by taking a photo everyday.
I am so inspired by all of the journalling going on out there. Especially the ones that are documenting a whole year.
So next year I want to journal 2014 which is quite daunting and a big a commitment. So I thought I would give it a trial run by doing a month to begin with lol.
I am going to take a photo every day throughout November. Granted some of them are going to be pretty boring...!  Then the idea is to put them all in a book or page - not quite sure yet. With some journalling of course :)
It would be great if someone played along. Just let me know and I'll have a look on your blog xxx