Cathy's Crafting

Well unfortunately December turned into a bit of a madly stressful month and JYC went out of the window - I do find it really difficult to persevere with a monthly type challenge if I don't manage to keep up with it. Anyway I'm not castigating myself about it - my kids had a fab christmas, their room is very nearly decorated and I'm a qualified change manager so I'm happy with that. Am planning to print off some christmas photos at some point and make a more complete 2009 album but that'll have to do for this year.

Have found a new challenge which I really love for 2010 which is to be creative every day - here - definitely appeals as its not only scrapbooking but a challenge to do something creative every day. I have acquired lots of inspirational craft books and a sewing machine in the last year so I have lots of things I want to try and do and I think it will fit in well with this challenge, also singing counts and with a concert coming up in February I think I'll manage plenty of that :)

Have a good new year's eve everyone...

Today we took the boys to see Santa so I veered away from Shimelle's theme to make this LO instead:




Apologies about the rubbish photo, will replace with a better one when I have time and the light improves! A very enjoyable day :)

Today's prompt was about the perfect Christmas - last year my page for this prompt was based on a picture from Ideal Home magazine which certainly represented a form of Christmas perfection which I will one day aim for. However it's certainly a long way off in the house we've just moved to – there’s a whole heap of decorating we need to do first. So I started to think about what really makes my Christmas perfect and the idea for this year’s page came into my head very quickly. Here it is:


What really makes Christmas perfect for me is seeing Charlie and Owen's faces as they see their stockings and the Christmas tree for the first time on Christmas morning. Charlie's at school now and I know the Santa Secret won't be kept forever, so I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts...

OK I was already behind with JYC - Wednesdays are mad for me as I get the boys off to school and nursery, work a full day, nip home for some tea and then spend the evening singing at the wonderful Park Angels. So I had a mini catch up tonight.

First of all I did my LO for yesterday - Shimelle's theme was weather but I strayed from the brief as I really wanted to include a LO about how this is our first year in our new house.


This is the reverse of my LO for December the 1st which was on acrylic so I needed to make sure I covered those elements - a photo of the house will go in the little flap on the right hand side, but its always dark/raining when I am at home at the moment so I need to wait for the right weather to get a decent photo. The journalling is about how happy we are to be in our new house after 18 months of trying to move.

Today's LO theme was cards and I stayed a bit closer to the brief. Owen and Charlie both designed cards this year at school and nursery that we could buy prints of to send to our friends and family. I really wanted to incorporate them both but my album is quite small (6x6) so I had to think carefully how to do it. In the end I based the LO on an envelope which both the cards slot into - I love how this has turned out.

This is the front:


This is the back (I love Owen in his Santa hat and wanted to be able to see it:


And this is the LO with the cards taken out:



And this is how both LOs look put into my album:



My blog has changed templates again - one of my friends (thanks Jen) had said she couldn't leave a comment on my December 1st post so I am hoping that reverting to a simpler template should resolve this - so please leave a comment if you like what you've seen so I know it's working now!

Yay, am finally scrapping again after the house move - and in for a penny, in for a pound, it's Journal Your Christmas time once again. I did this class for the first time last year (it's from shimelle.com - link to the left) and loved the journal that I made, even if I didn't finish it until March! I had got myself organised before we moved and made my album during the October Cove Crop - I won the Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly papers at a retreat in September so have based the album on those, supplemented by the christmas stash I acquired last year. The LOs are 6x6 and the album is from American Crafts.

I have done a few clear LOs this year and thought it would be fun to include some in my album - today's theme was manifestos and writing about what we want to include in our journals or to do this Christmas. I have concentrated on the christmas I want to have this year - it's been a very stressful time with the house move, Charlie starting school and lots on at work - so we are concentrating on relaxing, enjoying and remembering what's important. My only journal related aim is to get it finished in 2009, and I do want to blog about it regularly too. The journal card and sticker is from Cosmo Cricket and the number 1 is a thicker - had to include some glitter too as I love a bit of sparkle and wanted some more definition of the edge of the page - tomorrow will be the real challenge though as I will have to do the 2nd LO on the clear back of the first! Hope you like it...

Considering I am currently participating in Shimelle's class for improving your blog, it is pretty poor that this is my first blog post for a month. The move went really well but then I got ill with a chest infection and have spent the last 3 weeks feeling very sorry for myself and not doing a lot else. On top of that we decided to decorate the craft room/office before unpacking all our books and scrapping stuff so all my lovely PPs are languishing in boxes - I am starting to crave a crafting session so must be getting better!

Happily the electrician is just finishing putting in some new sockets and we will then be able to get on with painting the woodwork and laying the new flooring which will be the end of the decorating. :) :) :) Then Jon will put up the desk and shelves and I can unpack everything and get some scrapping done. My parents are visiting on Sunday so we are hoping to have the room pretty much finished by then.

- We are moving TOMORROW!!! Am SO excited, and exhausted after a weekend of packing - it's taken 18 months to get this far but the last week has been manic.
- Complete lack of blog action recently due to moving madness but hopefully will have a bit more time for scrapping and blogging once we're in and get our Sky broadband sorted on Wednesday (2 days without the internet....eeekk!)
- Am having a craft room in the new house...Yippee!!
- I am doing Shimelle's latest class which is all about blogging for scrappers - link on the left!
- Hope you like the blog revamp, inspired by the first notes from the blogging class - I love it.

So on Saturday I was very lucky to attend the scrapagogo storyteller event in Bristol. There were 5 classes and it was a long day after a sleepless night but I really enjoyed it and learnt loads. It was nice to meet some of the gogo ladies that I converse with online and everyone was very friendly. There were 3 LOs and 2 minibooks - the minibooks are nowhere near finished but I sat down and finished the LOs last night and they are here:


This class was all about circles - using the circles on the PP and telling a circular story - mine is about Port Eynon where I used to go regularly as a child and took my children back to.


This was Laura's class about using rub-ons and writing onto photos - this was the only LO I managed to finish on the day.


This was Nicola's class on using fabrics - I found the yoyo's quite difficult but perserved and I love how this LO has turned out. Considering we didn't know what we'd be making in advance the photo matches the LO colours very well. We're buying a frame for this one and putting it on the wall.

Twist this time was to use some metal and I have sneaked it in using brads with my blooms! The PPs are MME Abbey Road Stomp and the alphas are from Basic Gray and AC thickers, blooms from stash. Hope you like it!

I spent the first morning at Runways End finishing my mini book (see previous post) and in the afternoon did a LO for that day's sketch challenge. It didn't win but is a lovely reminder of our fabulous 5th wedding anniversary - there are definitely some more LOs to be done using the photos from Tylney Hall. I used MME Bellazo PPs and my stock of these is almost finished now:


We then had a class on cutting photos which was led by Katie from Cre8tive online who provided the shop for Runways End - I loved her shop and spent far too much! I cut up a photo taken in the Lakes and made this LO - I would not willingly try and cut cardboard flourishes again but I think they look really good on this:


I then returned on Sunday to do another sketch challenge and used PPs from my August scrapagogo kit to make this LO - it won! I was very surprised and very happy with my prize of Teresa Collins Documented PPs:


There was also a colour challenge running over the whole weekend which gave some different pallets of colours on which to base a LO. I was very pleased to tie for first place for this challenge too, as I love the LO I made and was delighted with my prize of some cosmo cricket Jolly by Golly PPs:


My last LO was really to try out some Tim Holtz masks that I'd bought from the shop. I used Maya Road glimmer mist and the masks to make the 'camping' word in this title and am really pleased with how it looks:


Finally there was just time to make a few gift tags:


What a fab and productive weekend! I loved the retreat and am a bit gutted that the next one coincides with Charlie's birthday, but I will definitely be going along to next September's!

Roll on next Saturday when I am scrapping with Scrapagogo for the day!

The pre-crop challenge for Runways End was some pieces of pre-cut chipboard to be made into something. There was a variety of offerings and although I didn't win the challenge I was really pleased with the mini book I made of our holiday to Spain in June. And now, if you scroll down to the bottom of this page you can see all the pages on a flickr slide show... hope you like it!

Lots of catch up posts today hopefully (as long as the PC keeps functioning...). First big news is we've finally found a house to move to, which seems to be going through OK at the moment. Am now feeling a lot less stressed and my mojo has reappeared - it'll probably go again once I start having to pack boxes!

First of all I wanted to share the LOs I did at the August Cove Crop. The first two were both made with the lovely MME Abbey Road Stomp PPs, which I loved as soon as I saw and am still loving! We went to see my Dad and Mum in Yeovil in August and these photos were taken while we were with them:




This LO was made with some random bits from my stash and I love the photo of my Dad and the boys on a day out at Longleat:



More LOs later...

Have spent a fab weekend at the Runways End retreat rediscovering my mojo and got loads done:


1 mini book, a CJ entry, 5 layouts and 2 gift tags - as well as heaps of ideas, a bit of stash shopping and lots of chat and fun! Am hoping to post some better photos later in the week but the light's gone now and am completely knackered. Also in the photo are the 2 fab prizes I won in today's sketch challenge and the colour challenge - some Teresa Collins Documented PPs and embellies and a Cosmo Cricket 'Jolly by Golly' kit - completely fab and very unexpected!

Best thing is that I've made up lots of page kits and am enthused to get back to scrapping again, which is just as well with a scrapagogo day out coming up next Saturday!

Sorry for the complete lack of blog action recently... Have had some time off work and been off round the country seeing family and friends and am off again today camping in the New Forest for the bank holiday. On top of that the house we were buying had fallen through (luckily it was us that pulled out not the vendors) but we are now trying to find somewhere else to live asap and just can't find anywhere - it's very stressful and quite tiring so by the end of the day I've been collapsed in a chair watching tele (well actually normally falling asleep).

I have done some scrapping at the Cove crop and will post photos when I am back. Hopefully when I am back at work my mojo will return and there'll be plenty more posts again...

Anyway just to post something here are some older LOs that I particularly like:

So the first LO I did this week was for the UKS weekly challenge. When I first read it I was uninspired but I was going through my old kits and found my lovely MME Bellazo papers. Inspiration struck reasonably quickly after that and this was my finished LO:


The challenge was to do a Love themed LO, incorporating some memories, a technique you hadn't used for a while and 5 of something. Shamefully my Slice had been sitting in the cupboard for months so I used that to cut the title (and am now back to loving my Slice again) and I used 5 blooms. Am really pleased with this LO...

On Thursday my new Scrapagogo kit arrived full of loveliness. Have got lots of ideas of piccys to scrap this month. This was the first and will also be my entry for the birthday bash challenge:


I also received back my first CJ which had a 'Happiness is' theme, sadly it's not complete though after lots of problems with the newbie CJ group. Luckily I have a backup team of volunteers from my scrapagogo CJ who are each going to do a LO for the missing pages for me so it will be appearing here completed at some point...

Plans for the weekend: scrap some more with my lovely new kit and print off the other photos I want to use, do an EHAS LO (my catch up has been sadly lacking) and to complete a LO with my fabby new MME stomp PPs which arrived this week. I am going away for some of the next week to see my folks in Yeovil so am going to take a minibook with me that I need to finish before the runways end retreat in September. Next weekend is Cove Crop so I also need to start thinking about what to take along to that...

Am having a busy time at the moment so not managing as much blogging as I like, but have fitted in some scrapping. This first LO was for the UKS August challenge and the first challenge of the month on Studio 101 (see blinkie left) - doubt it will win any prizes but I enjoyed doing it:


My next LO I have been meaning to do for months since a trip to a local farm last February. We took lots of great photos so I picked my favourites and used a pagemaps sketch for a DLO. The papers are from Fancy pants and I really like the range of colours:


Finally I did one of my catch up LOs for Everyone Has a Story - am catching up but not as quickly as I wanted so am going to try and do some more this week too. This one is about saying thank you.

I loved this week's sketch, totally fitted in with my normal style of scrapping and already had a photo printed which I could see working really well in it. Anyway, this is what I came up with:


PPs and some of the flowers are from MME Bloom and alphas are from Basic Grey. The rest of the blooms were from my stash. i am very pleased with how this came out...

Have actually managed to fit in some crafting time this week and picked up my Everyone Has a Story project again - am planning on having a catch up during August so there should be lots more of these LOs appearing again. One of the EHAS prompts was to do with milestones and I hadn't yet created a LO about my wedding, despite printing off the photos for it before the workshop last November! Anyway I found the photos last night, got the prompt out again and came up with these, really enjoyed writing about all my memories of a very happy day.




Have also done some CJ entries this week and had my first go at paper engineering - am pretty sure the owner of this CJ won't see this hidden away here - the theme of the CJ was 'Rainforest' and my LO was about tropical butterflies:

Here are some LOs I've done recently:


This is Owen paddling in Stoke Park in Guildford, I've got a very similar picture of me in the same paddling pool about 30 years ago so I'll have to do a LO with both on at some point.


Have been having a catch up on scrapping Owen as I seem to have done heaps of LOs of Charlie and not so many of Owen. I found these photos in a box already printed at this size and thought that they were perfect to go together.



This double sided LO was for the Scrapagogo birthday bash week 2 challenge - really love how this turned out as it was quite complicated to do both sides at the time. The PPs are from the June scrapagogo kit.

This is my LO for this week's twisted sketch and this week's challenge on UKS. Unfortunately photo is not good as the weather here is awful and I had to use the flash. Anyway the journalling card (mm noteworthy in case you were wondering) reads: 'What I learned... that we are stronger and better together; that we can cope with whatever happens, that love deepens and grows'. I used bazzil cardstock and leaves, jewellery box thickers, collage press knave of hearts PP and blooms and pearls from stash. The stamp (which is part of the flourish in the bottom left) is from Banana Frog.

Now on to my CJ entry for this month, is a 'Reasons to be Cheerful' theme and I have the perfect photo and entry to make...

We spent yesterday celebrating one of Charlie's friend's 4th birthday at the fab Horton Park Children's farm which is near Epsom. It was probably one of the best children's farms we've been too (and we've done plenty) so we are planning another trip later this summer. One of their attractions is a large bouncy pillow - it took Charlie a while to get his confidence on it but after a while he was bouncing really well and I got lots of lovely photos. Jon was out at the pub in the evening so I spent the evening scrapping and came up with these:


PPs by October Afternoon, MME and Kelly Pianacci (I think); ribbon and flairs from American Crafts; felt buttons are Making Memories Animal Crackers. Buttons from stash.


PPs are BG Lime Rickey and alphas are AC thickers, ricrac from stash.
Both these LOs were based on pagemap sketches - I have only recently got this book and love the LOs it is inspiring me to create.

On to my next big project tonight. I am off to the Runways End retreat in September and we have a pre-crop challenge of a chipboard mini book to complete - I am going to use photos from our holiday to Spain earlier this year and am going to have to think very creatively to get them all in!

Haven't managed to post much this week as we unexpectedly sold our house on Monday and have been in a whirl of house-hunting, lawyers and financial advisors ever since. We've found two houses we like the look of so here's hoping...

In the midst of the chaos my scrapagogo kit arrived - I have been getting these kits since last August and I normally really like them. This month's is no exception, a lovely mix of oranges, red and greens - yummy. I spent yesterday evening and came up with this LO inspired by a pagemaps sketch. Hope you like it!



Am now off to the post office to collect my pre-crop challenge for the runways end weekend retreat in September...

So it was my 34th birthday on Saturday. We are keen campers and had planned a trip to Hollands Wood in the New Forest. We couldn't plan the weather though and it was pretty bad, torrential rain on Sat night from 8pm till about 4 in the morning so no birthday drinks outside for me! Still just going to bed really early was a treat in itself as I never normally seem to have time to catch up on my sleep.

The other thing we couldn't plan for were insect bites and Charlie got bitten/stung badly and woke up on Sat morning with the left side of his face completely swollen. We sat for 3 hours in Lymington hospital before he was sent home with some high dose anti-biotics - happily he seems much better now and his face is gradually going back to normal!

I did get some lovely presents though (largely I think because I wrote a list this year and gave it to Jon several weeks ago!) - a woodware trimmer, a lovely new photo frame, a big kids cartridge for my Slice machine, and lots of lovely new inspiration books - Sew Pretty Homestyle, The Creative Family, Homemade, and The Big Ass book of Crafts. Also got lots of money for new stash so did very well I think!

Have had a busy weekend (more of that later) so not much time for crafting, did manage to get this week's challenge on UKS completed last night. You had to use a summer theme and title, some ribbon, 2 photos and do some secret journalling. This is my completed LO:



The secret journalling is here:



Tonight am planning to do the first challenge for the Scrapagogo birthday bash and hopefully will have time to have a go at this week's twisted sketch too....

Another week, another fab twisted sketch. The twist this week was to use some acetate, which I have used as part of my circle embellishment. Love the gorgeous PPs on this LO which were from MME penny lane. The orange alphas are from the Pink Paislee fetching range and the white alphas are American Craft vinyl thickers. The photo was taken at Barcelona Zoo when we were in Spain in June and I think it's captured the boys' personalities really well - they are definitely as cheeky as they look...

Have had a manic but very fun weekend with Owen's birthday so no time for scrapping - am hoping to have a good go at it this evening though! I've been scrapping for just under a year now and these are some of my favourite LOs that I've produced in the last year. Please leave a comment if you like them!

This is Charlie throwing stones into West Bay in Dorset - made using Sept 08 scrapagogo kit:



This is all of us together on a family day out - made (again) from the Sept 08 scrapagogo kit:



This is Charlie and his beloved cousin Henry in our local park - made using Crate paper Mia collection, american craft thickers and lace from stash: