Mixed media layout

At a recent retreat I was lucky enough to be sitting near to the hugely talented Michele Thomas from Crafts for Eternity and she very generously showed me how to create a stunning background for a layout. I was absolutely thrilled with the result and shall be playing around in the future with lots of texture and generally having fun!! Thanks Michele!!

I hadn't been able to scrap for a while after the retreat because I have had a poorly puss to look after, here she is looking very sorry for herself!!

I think the tongue is telling me exactly what I can do with my camera!!

Anyhoo while cat sitting and in the absence of scrapping I have been tangling and thought I would share one of them here.

now that barley is on the mend, I can hopefully get back to my scrap room and put into practice all the wonderful techniques I learnt at the retreat!

quick layout to share

My blog has been sadly neglected of late - the wedding of son and heir and the arrival of five beautiful (and naughty!!) kittens have taken precedence over everything else, but I am desperately trying to get on top of things!
So here's a quick layout that I did a while back and hadn't got around to posting.

I'm off on a scrapbooking retreat this weekend so I fully intend to have lots to share with you soon!

decorating finished

and here it is!

I got this nifty door handle thingy from The Home store in Manchester - great for storing  my necklaces on!

canvas

apart from zentangling I have been redecorating one of the bedrooms, rather than go out and spend more money I decided to have a go at making my own artwork for the walls.
This is a canvas I came up with using texture paste, paint, glimmer mists and a bit of Tim Holtz tissue

zentangle

some time ago I mentioned that I'd started Zentangling (or as I like to call it 'justified doodling!!')
I had an old set of drawers that had seen better days so I thought I'd give it a go on something larger than a piece of paper!  After all if I didn't like it when it was finished I could always paint over it so I didn't have anything to lose really!

and here they are...

Think I'll stick to pages in future but I had fun doing it!

Oh dear

for all my good intentions, it's been a month since my last post!
Of course it has nothing to do with the amount of time I spend on pinterest (and if you believe that.......)

On the rare occasion I manage to drag my sorry butt away from the pc, I have been playing around with some more journalling pages, not sure what I shall journal as yet - at present I am just enjoying the process and getting messy!

Having a clear-out

on my pc and came across these layouts that (I don't think) I have previously shared, so thought I'd pop them on here as I haven't had a lot of free time to update my blog recently.

and back again!!

the writing carries over from the opposite page so isn't supposed to make any sense!

I love this quote and it is soooo true!!
That's all for now back with more soon!

back to scrapping for a while!

art journal

some more pages!

I used fun flock to create the 'barcode' effect

again with the funflock!!

a new direction

for the last month or so I have been trying my hand at art journalling, I find I love the freedom of expression and can sit for hours just getting messy, I seem to be permentantly covered with ink and paint these days.

It's also great that lots of things in my craft room that hadn't seen the light of day for years are now being used again, oh the joys of fun flock and oil pastels!

I will no doubt be back to scrapping in the near future but for now I am really enjoying having a new direction and wanted to share some of my pages with you, hope you like them!

this is the cover, I used an old 7 gypsies notepad, a lot smaller than a traditional journal but I'd had this for a while without doing anything with it and thought I could start small and if I enjoyed it go on to larger projects later..

ooh I do love my gesso!!!

I've always loved this quote, the gorgeous little alphas are kaiserkraft, I also wanted to create a page that incorporated zentangle, another hobby I've recently started trying to get to grips with (but more on that one later!)

that's it for now, I'm off to go get messy again!!

I think it may be time....

to tidy my scraproom!
I don't know how I have been working in this mess!

At least I managed to do a clutter-free layout!
We all have to start somewhere!!

For those afraid of spiders, look away NOW

I did this layout at the recent Sarah's cards retreat after a good friend (thanks Lesley!!) gave me this fantastic 'spider' paper, I couldn't resisit cutting all the little spiders out to put on this spiders web background paper from October afternoon.

This is my daughter, at last year's Halloween party.

Although she bought the 'zombie cheerleader' outfit, she did all the face make-up herself, after watching tutorials on U tube, I think she looked pretty amazing!!

some more

Just a quick post to share some more layouts before I go to work.

I recently went to the Sarah's cards retreat in Warrington and had the most amazing time! It was great to catch up with old friends and make new ones!
Since I got back I have done very little scrapping, as day to day life seems to have taken over and the odd free time I have had I have spent unwinding with a good book or attempting to art journal, which is fast becoming a new passion!

I didn't want to leave it too long before posting again though as I had promised myself not to neglect my blog, and so I have taken some photographs of the layouts I had done previously and which still haven't made it into an album! I really should sort this growing pile out!!

and some more....

my beautiful granddaughter, Megan

this is another one I started at one of the crops and couldn't quite finish, wish the weather was like that now!!

Having a clear out!

I have got so many files with photos in that I thought it was time I organised them and put them all on disc. While I was looking I came across a number of layouts that I had photographed and never got around to uploading so i thought I would finally share them here.

this is the latest addition to our household, the adorable Declan!!

and this is me and Mr Doodle, the photo was taken by Doodle junior.
I may well come across some more while I am on my clear-out mission so watch this space!

cropping

Saturday was my cropping day with the lovely lades of Yoxall, even though we were a smaller group this week with a lot of people away, we still managed to have a great time and the cakes were delish!!!

This was the first layout I did, Lesley had bought along some gorgeous masks and let me have a play with this gorgeous tree one! Thanks Lesley!!! (I did have a moments panic that I was never going to get the promarkers off the table when I did this one, but thankfully it all came up sparkling again!!)

Thanks to gillian too for the help with the title!!
If you lift the photo up there's another photo underneath

fun with foils

Isn't it funny how, when you're looking for something, you discover something else that you'd forgotten you'd got? Or is that just me?!
I was so happy to discover a little bag with foils in that I totally forgot what it was I was looking for in the first place!!
And so it was that in the wee small hours I was still huddled over my craft desk playing!
Had loads of fun creating this layout and will definitely be using foils again in the future, hope you like it!

cheeky!

I just love this photo of my grandson, his cheeky expression together with the book he's holding, was a photo crying out to be scrapped!

back with more

layouts to share! I've been enjoying taking part in the challenges over at UKS and thought I'd share a few on here

Finishing what I started..

I often find myself having to walk away from a layout that's not working for me, but it is rare for me to not go back to it at some point.

I actually find that sometimes leaving it alone (sometimes for weeks!) helps me to focus on where I want it to go. It's a little like doing a crossword puzzle for me, I often find that answers I've struggled with sometimes leap out at me the next time I go back to it.

So here's one I started and struggled with at my last crop, this is my gorgeous grandson Elliott enjoying what can only be a rare moment of sunshine!!

busy, busy,busy!

Would you believe that already this year I have done no less that 16 layouts?! I think it's mostly down to the weather and not being able to venture out into the thick snow (that's my excuse anyway!).
I have decided that this year I WILL get around to all those layouts I have had on the back burner and I WILL complete all those I started and never got back to! (If I say it enough I might actually believe it myself!)
I have kept up with last years resolution to use up all my old stash and make it up into kits and I have found this really helpful and even enjoyable! Although weirdly my stash pile still isn't showing any signs of dwindling, although my albums are getting fuller!
Here's one of my recent efforts:

Still here!

I really am going to keep my new year's resolution to blog at least once a month ... I know you've heard it all before!!
So, to start off as I mean to go on, here's a quick layout: