HLM - Blogpost August 2016

My blogpost is up over on the Hey Little Magpie blog today, using papers from Jillibean Soup - Mushroom Medley, please hop over and have a look and also visit the Hey Little Magpie shop to see this collection and tonnes more.

Happy Scrapping.

A new adventure ... is just around the corner

Well hello everyone, I know, I know I was saying I would be more upto day with my blog, but truly this time I've got a great excuse and one I have been buzzing to share with all my crafting buddies.

I will start by telling you the background, several years ago I started to think about running crafting events, and got talking to my friends Sam and Sheena and you know how it is, when you get-together and start to throw around ideas and it all seems such a great idea, but we never actually did any research to see whether it was viable or even if we could actually pull it off.

Me, Sheena & Sam - Chatsworth Gardens, 

April 2016

Well,  life got on the way and even though no plans had been put into place it was also at the back of my mind, that one day something could / would happen.  I took to organising my mini retreats with a group of friends twice a year and was happy with how these were going and still are  and more so how our little group of scrapping friends really got on and always looked forward to the next one, even when the current one hadn't even finished.

So back to my tale, so 3 weeks ago I was swiping through Instagram and saw that a designer who I followed and who style I was in awe of, was holding a workshop in the area she lived, well I don't know what came over me, but I sent her a message and asked if she would even think of coming to the UK to teach, and after pressing send ... I was like OMG! what have I done, she will think I'm bloody mad just messaging her out of the blue ... well I believe within 15 minutes I had a reply saying she would love too ... WTF! OMG! really, I spent an age just looking at the phone and thinking OMG! what now??.   Anyway a couple of phone calls to Sam and Sheena who where both as stunned as I was, and it was on.  What 'it' was we had no idea.  But our little partnership had a kick start and our new venture was taking hold we called ourselves  'Birds of a Feather'.

In the midst of planning this event, I was looking for some photographs that I wanted to scrap and came across this layouts I did back in March 2013, what a coincidence the title of the page and also that the photograph was taken at the same venue we are going to hold our event at ...I'm taking this a good sign.  My scrapping style as changed but so glad our friendship remains.

  

layout done March 2013, photographs taken October 2012

In my former life I was a secretary for 20 years and was used to organising things and this just gave me the buzz I need, after feeling crap for the last couple of months.  So I was on the hunt to find a hotel, possible a shop to attend, raffle prizes, what we would do at the event.

Within two weeks of sending that message, I had found a hotel to hold the event, got a shop, obviously Hey Little Magpie was our first choice and they said yes.  Our designer had booked her flight and it was all systems go.

Sam, Sheena and me have worked really hard to fine turn what we though we could offer and the date was set to launch our new adventure ... and today is the day that it has gone live on Facebook.  The buzz over the past few days have been great and we have smiled between us, as people are planning to book days off, and make travel arrangements and they didn't even know what was happening.  I do hope that they are as excited to see who we have asked to teach and book on the workshops, we are buzzing and we know that she is.


Drum roll - its the lovely Paige Taylor Evans

We are so exciting that she will be with us for the whole weekend, teaching at two full days workshops and we are really looking forward to seeing what she will produce with you new paper collection - Take Me Away.

If you would like further information regarding this event please contact

info@birdsofafeather.uk.com

and we will be happy to forward an information sheet and booking form.

I will be back shortly to share some of my recent layouts, and of course giving you some updates about this upcoming event.

Hey Little Magpie - July 2016 Blogpost

My layouts are up today over on the Hey Little Magpie Blog (here).  This month I used the lovely collection from Fancy Pants Design - Life is Beautiful.  The quality of these papers are lovely, each paper is textured and a good quality - i would rate them as a similar weight to American Craft Cardstock, so very substantial.

Hope over to the blog and see my 4 layouts I've managed to do this month, and better still why not purchase some of this lovely collection from the store. - here

Happy scrapping everyone

Another layout using a sketch

This time I used one of my Like For Ever Kits  - 'In Bloom" June 2016 kit.  Another layout using a sketch.

Can you stop a theme over my last few pages, I love this little word stickers to add details and interest on my pages.

I also inked over the wood veneer, so that it would co-ordinate with the colour tones of the page.

Thanks for stopping by, happy scrapping ...

Mosley Crop - July 2016 challenge

At the beginning of July, I went to one of my crops and they had a challenge to produce a layout, project or anything crafty that was pink based, using pineapples and flamingos - which are all the rage now.

The challenge was to complete the project within the time of the crop, but I spent most of my day talking and ran out of time, but I did manage to come home and finish it.

I've used this photographs before on a layout, and to be honest I'm ok with using a photograph more than once, but as you can see - it fitted the bill perfectly.   I went though my stash and found some pink papers and found some with a pineapple print. 

I have a flamingo stamp, which I stamp onto two different shades of cardstock, cut them out and added them to the layout.

I'm loving using these little word stickers, I think these all came from Simple Stories - Carpe Diem Collection  here

For the title I used 3 different thickers from my stash.

Another layout that came together quickly, once I stopped talking that is, and put my head down  and got on with it - lol x.

Thanks for stopping by ...

Hip Kit Club - June 2016 Kit

Hi everyone, I'm back with another layouts I did recently using the Hip Kit Club, June 2016 kit.  This time I did a 9x12 layout - just because ... I've been doing quite a few of my layouts this size and just love working on this size, but I think I will always be a 12x12 scrapbooker at heart.


I had printed these photographs - which are approximately 2.5 x 2.5 inches square - printed on my selphy.  They are just random ones which I loved and didn't really tell a particular story, hence no journalling, but wanted to document anyway.  

Used one of the exclusive die cuts as the title, and a of the other pieces from the exclusive ephemera pack.

The '2015' is from Freckled Fawn (my stash), the brads are from Simple Stories - Sunshine & Happiness collection here   And yes, it does bug me that favourite is spelt the American way, but I can live with it.

This was on a wooden peg by Jellybean soup, I didn't want the peg, so took it off, if you look closely we will see it split when I was removing it from the peg, but I managed to put it back together on the page and once in the page protector no will notice, and if they do - so what - lol x .

A quick layout which works for me, I used a sketch as a starting point, but by the end of it, the only thing that was the same as the sketch was the use of 3 photos, but eh! it got me scrapping, it is what is all about.

Thats for stopping by ...

It's coming back ....

Yeah! I think my mojo is returning, slowly and surely, and hopefully I can get myself back into blogging regularly, but I won't promise anything as I've been doing that and it just not happening.


I can now share some layouts, that I've done over the past few weeks,  I recently subscribed to the Hip Kit Club  monthly kit, I've been following the site for a while and really love how the DT use the kits.  And decided to give them a go and see what the quality was like and how / if I would use what was in the kit each month.  So far I'm loving the kits and really hope that it has given me the kick re-start I needed to get back into scrapping.


This is my first layout using this kit - 'Hello Today' - and using a sketch they had put up on their site.

I love these little word stickers, this one is from Freckled Fawn and are not part of this kit, but one I got last year

These are from Pinkfresh Studio,  again not part of this kit.

I have added some hidden journalling on a tag at the top of the page.  I love how it has turned out.

My 2nd layout with this kit is another one using a sketch from their site.  I found these photos that I had printed and was just eating to scrap, of me and James on our visit to Bristol last year.  We had such a fab time and of course, there is always time for a selfie or two while we were on the hunt for Shaun the Sheeps.

In the kit there was a ephemera pack that is exclusively designed and this was one of the tabs - very appropriate for these photographs.

They also have exclusive alphabets - the dark blue are from the May kit, and the teal are from the June kit.

 I really love the colour tones of this kit and also having some sketches to work with has helped me get back in the flow of scrapbooking again.


I'll be back in a few days with some more layouts to share.

Happy Scrapping ...

    

Barbara's Birthday Page

There was some extra page protectors in Barbara's birthday album, so we decided to each do her an extra page of her on the day.


I decided to do my as part of my HLM blogpost for June and here it is.

My blogpost this month was about using stamps from Pink Fresh Studio here.  Here are some close ups.

I stamped the little cupcake and colour washed with distress inks

These are the lovely black foam thickers from Pink Fresh Studio - Felicity range here, and the cream/gold ones are from my stash.

I stamped on some patterned paper and cut a few of the word phases out to use as accents around the page.

I also added some machine stitched details around the page.

I love how the page came out and I really love working on 9x12 page layouts.

I will be back soon with more layouts to share.

Thanks for stopping by.

Barbara's Birthday - May 2016

In May, my lovely friend Barbara celebrated her 65th birthday, and the girls, who I went to New York with, and I decided to take her out for the day, and we chose Stratford.  the weather forecast didn't look very promising but we were determined to make the most of it.  We a walk around the town, which obviously meant we needed to take a few photos

Shakespeares House, which is right in the centre of the town (need to go back and actually go inside it the next time)

There had some lovely little shops, like this old fashioned sweet shop 

which had rows and rows of old fashioned sweets in jars along the shelves.

Even when it rained, we still continued to shop.

Then it was time for her next surprise, Afternoon Tea in the wonderful cafe on the High Street.

As it was a special birthday we did her an album, we each did 3 pages.

As you can see from this photograph she was overwhelmed and loved it.

 The Afternoon Tea was great, and there was so much that we couldn't finish it.

The we had a walk around to Butterfly Farm, again a lovely place that I need to go back to.

I think the butterfly through my top was part of the display, I was keen on it landing on me, but so glad I took a deep breath and got these photos - coming to a scrapbook pages soon.

And our final stop was for a coffee and cake, but I didn't fancy any cake so I had this yummy ice-cream instead.

We all had a fab day and Barbara loved it, which was just want we wanted to hear after all the planning.


These are my pages that I did for her album, I choose to do photos from our New York trip

This was a sketch, one of the many sketches I have on Pinterest.  I love how it turned out and I used Shimelle's Starshine collection and did some hand stitching.

I used another Pinterest sketch for this one, and my hexagon punch that I've had for a while and not used. These photos were taken shortly before we went on our evening cruise.

More hand-stitching, photographs taken at the Top of the Rock.

This design is a cut file from the silhouette cameo store, but instead of cutting it I used the 'perforation' feature, so instead of cutting the shape out, it makes perforation marks - allowing me to hand stitch the design.

Thanks for stopping by