Layouts to share

So here are the layouts I created with my Cherry Arte kit from Rebecca's Scrapbooking Stash - if you haven't got one yet, you should (just for the buttons in my opinion...sign of mild obsession again...). I found these papers so easy to work with - they are fairly bold and bright prints but I found they worked perfectly, particularly as my cats tend to lie on a fuschia pink fleece which is a nightmare to colour match with most paper ranges! I think I'm definitely getting better at working with this page size too - I'll never feel quite as at home with it as I do with 12x12 but I'm starting to realise that you really have to tone down the sizes and embellishments so that you don't overpower the page!
The first page is about my cat's toes - I'm probably more obsessed with these than I am with buttons and I'm always messing with them which I'm sure drives the poor things mad but they put up with me because they know I'm their mad mumma!
The second page is about my cat Ernie - he is the longest, stretchiest cat in the world and sometimes when he is getting comfy on the bed he gets himself into the funniest positions and lets you scratch his belly and pull him around without a care. So this layout is dedicated to him!The final layout is about Bert and Ernie - sometimes they get so comfy together that they have a hug, and I took these two lovely photos of them one day in December when they were all cosied up! I love my button and ribbon heart - never thought I could possibly use that many on one 8.5x11 page! All my titles have been stamped with various Autumn Leaves alphabets which I'm going through a phase of totally loving at the moment.

I went to work today and got through it, hardly my best teaching mind but I didn't expect it to be. I'm still feeling a bit pants though so I might go to bed early with a hot water bottle and a dvd to try and sleep it off. Roll on weekend!

Buttons, buttons everywhere...

...I can only blame Rebecca and her gorgeous kit for this, but I think that today I created my most button laden layout ever. Of course, I can't share the whole thing yet but here are a couple of sneaky peeks to give you an idea of what I mean. I LOVE this layout - I think I might have a button fetish (purely in scrapbook terms you understand)! Sorry the colours of the photos are a bit wierd, thats artificial light for you!

I've been feeling a little better today, not exactly A1 but I plan on getting back to work tomorrow, I hate it when I fall too far behind because it can be impossible to catch up for weeks. Even now I know there will be loads of cover lesson work on stacks of A4 paper sitting on my desk waiting for me when I get back in the office...

The State of Things...

I thought I would share some pics of the work in progress that is my bathroom. On the upside, I really like the colour I chose for the wall. On the downside, as you can see, in one corner we have no wall! And yes, that toilet pan is the sole sanitary luxury we have in the house at the moment.

Been feeling rotten today, but I'm off to the doc's tomorrow so hopefully all will be sorted and I'll be feeling right as rain in a day or two.

In the meantime, here are some sneaky peeks of some layouts I've just sent off to Rebecca's Scrapbooking Stash. This month she sent us a totally gorgeous Cherry Arte kit - I can't enthuse enough about how much you get for your money but you could create at least half a dozen layouts easily and have loads leftover. The little jar of buttons and clips is just the best! I've been doing a bit of stamping and tearing, as you can see...

You Two Have Taught Me...

I thought I would share with you today this page I made last Wednesday - I just finished off the journalling this morning. Its made using a gorgeous paper from the November Back Porch Memories kit (an American scrapbook kit) which was so totally beautiful on its own it really didn't require much doing to it except drawing and doodling around some of the designs and cutting a section of it out to feature on my layout. The photo is of my mum and dad at Bella Italia, the restaurant we went to for my Dad's birthday, and I wanted to do a layout on all the lessons they have taught me in my life. I used Freestyle alphabet stamps for my title and a couple of rubons that came with the kit but other than that it is a very simple but heartfelt layout.

I'm hoping for a quiet Sunday today - I think I need to work on improving my mood and at least the sun is shining here which always makes me more positive. Lets hope next week is a happier one!

Bathroom Misery!

A couple of disasters on the bathroom front - suffice to say, that is the last time I let Ed measure up the room for furniture! It means we will probably be left without a working bathroom for three weeks until a new bath gets delivered and my Dad can come back up to fit it. And my scrap room is still full of tools. So I think I'm going to have to get a big tray and start scrapping on the bed next door - there is no way I can go three weeks without making a page!

Fortunately, I have a few pages to share with you now, which I made for the Papermaze blog. The first is about a weekend I spent in Brighton last September with my old uni mates - we ended up getting addicted to Singstar on the Playstation and had a brilliant time - that game is hilarious! The papers were KI Memories new Pop Culture range which I thought was appropriate to the subject matter.

The next page is about my little cat Ernie - who it turns out is a bit of a scaredy cat as while the bathroom work has been going on he won't even stay in the house and runs away at the very sight of my Dad! This page makes use of the KI lace cardstock which I have doodled on to make it stand out more.

Finally, I made this little card too - I'm not really a cardmaker but I didn't think this one was too bad - I like the little brad centres for the cut out flowers.

I have a couple of pages in the pipeline but who knows when I'll get to finish them now? Hopefully I'll get some done tomorrow, but for tonight I'm off to a party...

A little out of sorts...

I've been feeling a bit strange over the last week - it might be the January blues to blame but I'm super-emotional. I was even telling off a really annoying kid earlier and then felt like crying for him while I was doing it! (I'm sure he didn't by the way, I wasn't that evil!). And then in the next minute, I feel full of rage and have to grit my teeth to avoid going off on one about something trivial. So as you can imagine, I'm an absolute joy to live with at the moment, and I really feel for poor Ed who is having to put up with me! I'm going to make a conscious effort to try and be more calm and collected from now on...

I have been doing a little scrapping, but of course there is no point photographing anything till the weekend when there will be enough light to take a decent shot. I've been working with my Back Porch Memories November kit (which I used for Bella Italia) and I've put together a lovely layout about my mum and dad.

Tonight, I've got to work on a CJ entry for the crop I go to - got some ideas already so just a case of putting it together. However, that is not as easy as its always been - the big bathroom refit starts tomorrow, and as a consequence my scrapping space (the spare bedroom floor!) is being used for random tool and box storage. In the mood I'm in, that means that I currently feel like hitting said boxes, but my logical side knows this will achieve very little and I shouldn't be behaving like a spoilt brat when Ed and my Dad are doing me a lovely bathroom next door. So I'll just have to put up with a few weeks of scrapping on the table downstairs and carrying everything around the house with me.

On a more positive note, a lovely kit arrived today from Rebecca's Scrapbooking Stash which she is planning on selling - the papers are by CherryArte and she has put together a lovely set of embellishments, including (gasp) a whole jar full of buttons! I'm a complete button freak so this is like a kit from heaven for me :) Quick turnaround on this one, so expect to see my creations in a week or two...

Bella Italia

So here is the page I made last night, its called Bella Italia and is about the restaurant we went to in Banstead for my Dad's birthday in December last year. Whilst we totally love Italy, we are never that impressed with the food out there, but this restaurant was just great - the food was absolutely delicious and we had a really good time. As usual, I had a little bit too much red wine, but then thats just me!

I wanted to create a bit of a distressed look for this layout, and so I dry-brushed the edges of the cardstock using white paint, and I sanded the edges of the photos and the paper with my BG file kit (I got this as part of my prize and thought I wouldn't use it but its actually been really helpful). I handcut the word Italia out of white cardstock and then used the white vinyl Thickers that came with my kit for the rest of the title. I stamped a journalling block in white paint, and added a few white rubons for interest. Finally, I added the button borders, again most of these came with my kit.

As I said yesterday, its not a complicated layout but I really like it - the colours are just perfect as they remind me so much of the decor of the restaurant, as well as the colours of Tuscany too. It was just so simple to put together too - no messing about with different papers or fussing with embellishments. And it makes a change for me to have no black stamping on my page, although I've got to admit I did have to hold myself back - it just doesn't seem the same without a stamped embellishment or three. But I'm liking the understated look. The only thing I might do to change it is stitch some thread through the buttons.

Anyway, I hope you like it!