Wednesday 25 April 2012

#36 inspired by the Earth

Yes, it's really me and it's really only Wednesday evening. I wanted to schedule this to post on Sunday but Blogger seems to be playing up at the moment and the scheduler isn't working. So, being ahead of the game as much as I am, I've decided just to post right now.

I challenged you to think about the Earth, linking in with the idea of Earth Day last Sunday.

I had participated in an Earth Day blog hop that Danielle over at EcoScrapbook had organised and if you've spent any time reading her blog you will know that she is teaching us all to be more friendly to the Earth at the same time as enjoying our scrapping hobby. I've learnt such a lot from her and have been wanting to join in on some of her challenges for some time and this week suddenly seemed to be the time.

Her current challenge is to craft with toilet rolls and I thought that it would be interesting to create something other than a layout. I gathered some rolls together and then found this wonderful wreath featured on Pinterest {here}. Now I knew I didn't have enough rolls for something so grand and decided to go small just to try out the concept - to be honest I'm really not so good at paper crafting outside the 12x12 page so this was a double challenge for me. I added in two kitchen roll middles as well as a smaller roll from some giftwrap and built up my wreath. I edged it in glitter, added some book paper flowers (inspired by Nic H in her True Scrap class last weekend) and some recycled ribbon and that's pretty much it.

I'm not sure that the amount of hot glue I used was very environmentally friendly, but all in all, the only product on here that's actually new is the glitter and the pearls in the middle of the flowers. I even used a few scraps of paper from my leftover box for under the peals. The book papers come from an old book I picked up on Monday via a charity book swap box in the street - I'll be dropping off a few books in return next time I pass.

So what do do you think of my green project? I'm quite pleased with myself for following through on this today.



Now this isn't the best thing I've ever made, but it's hanging in my room giving me something new to look at and a new way of looking at toilet rolls and it's sparkly!

I saw some AMAZING items on Pinterest and you never know, I might try something else out sometime or I might even revisit the wreath again. I will be linking this up to Danielle's blog to prove that I DO join in other challenges from time to time *wink* and I really suggest you find yourself some inspiration and try something new every now and again - this was fun.

Pam will be back with you at the end of the week with her share and a new prompt will be up on Monday.

Have a good rest of the week everyone.

Monday 23 April 2012

Challenge #36 week of 23rd April 2012

Sorry for the delay in posting this - blogger issues! ;-)

Anyway, Pam really challenged us with her deep and meaningful prompt last week and it gave me a lot of food for thought. I'm sure it did you too.

And so, I wanted to give us a slightly lighter week and also wanted to tie it in with yesterday's Earth Day (22nd April). But Pam has been ahead of the trend again recently and has already challenged us with scrapping green, using our older products or creating with scraps.

So therefore, I'm going with something that can be as wide as you'd like to take it in your interpretation:

EARTH

Photo source

Take a moment this week to think about our Earth and what it means for you. If this leads you to create, all the better. If the prompt means something different for you then we'd love you to share that too.

We'd love to see your creations over in our Flickr gallery with the tag WM#36.

Have a good week everyone!

Sunday 22 April 2012

#35 Inspired by silver linings

I didn't know if I would make it, but I have. 

I waited for 11th hour inspiration and it worked out ok. Although I am a cup half-full type of gal, I struggled with exactly which story I wanted to tell and how to present it with not going into the nitty-gritty with the journaling.

Something Lynette wrote on the message boards inspired me to let go of some of those ideas and just let inspiration drive.

So here you have them -

Homeless & unemployed
 this layout came together quickly and without a sketch. I just glued things down until I was happy. All I had as beginning points were my two photos and my journaling on vellum. I hardly ever start with the story and have it printed, so I just went with it instead of trying to find a sketch that fit my elements.
 i highlighted some special parts of the story...
 and continued using old product from inspiration #33
 pretty happy with that page.

New Girl
 this page concept was born while watching recorded episodes of the show "New Girl" - {click here for the video of the opening sequence on which the layout is based}. Proving once again that inspiration can come from anywhere, this layout also came together quite quickly. The journaling slightly touches upon the topic for this week in a more glossed over sense. 



What memories did this prompt bring up for you? Even if they were too private to share with us, I hope you fully take on this challenge because those lessons are the reason we are who we are.

Lisa will be here tomorrow with another cool challenge I am sure.

Until next time. xo,
Pamage

#35 Inspired by silver linings

Pam gave us all a lot of food for thought this week with her deep prompt to look for the blue skies beyond those dark, grey clouds.

I struggled to think of a way to talk about something hard on a layout and even which "storm" to talk about. I like my pages to be a bit deep but I don't necessarily want to open old wounds or talk about people from my past who hurt me.

But then it came to me. And inspired by just having attended True Scrap this weekend and having swooned all over Nic Howard's gorgeous layout, I got to work and created a meaningful, layered page





I thought the MME paper was perfect for this and then I added a few other cut out pieces from the hexagon paper and also a leftover piece from when I die cut a rosette flower. All placed on a pretty doilie and teamed up with a few more bits and pieces made this a very satisfying page to create. I added a small amount of journalling on the front and have added one of my vellum pockets for the deeper words.

I included a small amount of the pink chiffon ribbon that we used in our wedding decorations and the roses echo the flowers I chose. A hint of pink picks up that aspect of our wedding colours whereas the coffee tones match some of the embroidery on my dress. The words on the page are self explanatory (I think!) ;-)

Is the reason I thought more about these little elements because of the Noell Hyman class in TS3 or do I do it automatically anyway? I think more the latter but maybe I noticed more because of the former.

Thanks Pam for pushing me to think about things a bit deeper and to see my way through some of those stormy days I've been experiencing recently. Sending you much love.

Monday 16 April 2012

Challenge #35 - Week of April 16, 2012

here's something I believe in full-heartedly.

Every cloud has a silver lining

However, sometimes when are wrapped up in the hard moments of our lives it is hard to see how things will turn out... 



It is hard to see the good in every situation. 



But often, hindsight is 20/20. And as we learn to look back at past lessons learned and positive outcomes, we can gain confidence that our current problems will turn out ok. 

there's always a silver lining

Your challenge this week, if you choose to accept it is to find the silver linings in your life, either current or past. To examine those storms to find out how things really turned out better than your expected.

I look forward to seeing and reading your stories. 
silver lining

Remember to share on our flick'r group with the tage WM#35. Lisa and I will be posting our layout next weekend.

xo,
Pamage

# 34 Inspired by Tablescapes

Lovely ladies,
clearly our Lisa is the master of all things pretty and pink. I loved her tablescapes and was clearly inspired by all the pretty Easter colors.

I decided to just put together the base for a page inspired by the colors and then add photos. This allowed me room to play, which is what I was going for this week.


I added the brads in both corners to drive the eye around the page.

I also had a bunch of brads still on my desk from last week's prompt and decided to use them up in a row

I mounted the photos on craft cardstock which I distressed a little.

Thanks for playing along for another week.

xo,
Pamage

Sunday 15 April 2012

#34 Inspired by Easter photos full of prettiness

Phew - what a week.

Last weekend was busy with family and filled with chocolate - most of which was brought back with me to hoard for times when I "need" my Cadbury fix. And since I've been back, I've been busy with stuff I can't share just yet but let me tell you that I have been cutting and gluing and sanding and inking all week.

But I managed to find time this evening to put together a little page from my challenge to you last weekend.

I wondered if I should make it more difficult for myself, perhaps taking the challenge is a different direction but in the end, decided to just use one of the pretty photos I'd posted and wrote a few lines about how I feel about decorating for my Easter dinner as well as mentioning a little cultural difference over here.

I scattered a bit of journalling around my page à la Pam but still need to practice that! I used my April Counterfeit Kit, Blossom, with its full-on colour palette and just played with layers and pretty stuff.





I'd like to get around to making another couple of pages with the other photos but we'll have to see how that works what with LOAD coming up and various other commitments. Another list of layouts to be added to my inspiration list I suppose!

If you had time to create this week, do share with us over at Flickr with the tag WM#34. How pretty can you go?

Monday 9 April 2012

Challenge #34 week of 9th April

I'm scheduling this post ahead of time as I should be on the road right now as this goes live, heading home after an Easter break. I know that we are lucky in Europe to have two Bank Holidays for this and the four day weekend is always a treat :-)

So, I'm sitting here with a To Do list as long as my arm of bits and pieces to get one in the next 24 hours feeling a bit sorry that I'm not doing my usual über-pretty Easter table decorating this time around. We often have a large family dinner on Easter Sunday or Monday and I like to go to town with the pink, fluffy decorations - seems appropriate somehow!

And then I thought that all that prettiness shouldn't go to waste. Therefore, in honour of Easter bunnies, I'm posting a few of my over-the-top favorite Easter photos for you to use as your inspiration :-) I'm interested to see which bit you'll take into your creating this week.

Short and sweet - ready, steady, get scrapping :-)






Share your creations with us over in our Flickr gallery with the tag WM#34.

We love seeing the contributions that you share with us each week - each of you makes both of us very happy :-)

Sunday 8 April 2012

#33 Inspired by Old Stash

Hello ladies. Did you go on a hunt through your stash? Well, I did. And I found some pretty cool treasures. I pulled them out to inspire me.


Look at all that cool stuff. Gel pens! I mean, I haven't used those since 2007. I was surprised they haven't dried up. And all those chipboard shapes, I got a bucket of those in 2006. The stickers I used to love to hoard and those plastic template shapes which go way back to 2002. 

I didn't force myself to use all of those items, but just let myself be guided by them and came up with two layouts.

unique big apple


I kept this layout pretty close to my current style with paint splatters and mix-matched patterns. However, I did incorporate an element outside of my usual style by mounting old jolee's boutique NYC stickers on black chipboard. I followed Shannon Tidwell's advice and used the entire sheet on this layout - and concentrated to a small area. I really liked the idea of the stickers overlapping each other, but the colors felt off. I didn't want such a stark contrast. So I resorted to the vellum still in my stash and added a new york city quote and some chipboard photo corners to complete the block. I like how it came out in the end and that the stickers were put to good use. I also drew some lines with my gel pens.

long beach




This layout was a little bit different from what I've been doing lately, but thanks to the colors I used and the timeless grid sketch, it still feels current. 

With this layout I managed all of the following:
* matted photos
* chipboard photo corner & embelishment
*felt embelishment
*handwritten title
* plastic frame with paint
* eyelets
* textured cardstock (no patterned paper)

I had fun visiting memory lane with my stash - and hey, I still have a bunch of stuff on desk which i might use on a couple more layouts.

I hope you found new ways to use your old items - and had some fun along the way. Can't way to see what your came up with in our gallery.

xo,
Pamage

Monday 2 April 2012

Challenge #33 - Week of April 2, 2012

Who's ready for another challenge?

Last year on twopeasinabucket.com, Shannon Tidwell ran a series titled Products You Love Every Which Way. I loved participating in that free class {you can still check out the archived lessons}. Every month it felt like I discovered something I didn't know about my own stash. It was quite wonderful.

Here are a few examples of pages I made inspired by this class -

this was part of "chipboard" month

this was part of "border sticker" month
All of the ideas Shannon offered used new and trendy products... but it made me wander what these pages would look like if I was learning to use up my stash in 2001 or 2005 or even 2009. 

So your challenge this week is to dig deep in your stash and find a product that you collected for a while and no longer use - and use it! Lots of it!

One of the keys I learned from Shannon is that products look better sometimes when they are grouped together in large quantities. Sometimes when we are using up our new products we are stingy in how we use them up, trying to stretch them. Using perhaps just the one butterfly from the pretty new set of stickers or just one of the border stickers from the brand new release. 

However, this challenge will provide you the perfect opportunity to splurge a little with how you use a product on a page. For example, I plan to find a use for all those eyelets (was I the only one that bought 300 of them and used just 5?) I have collecting dust in my stash. And I plan to use them like I use buttons or brads...



If you think about it, you bought so much of it back then because you loved it. And so what if it's old? Give yourself permission to use it and to use a lot of it. And add a few new products to make your page look fresh and current and fitting to your new style. You will love the results. I promise.

What do you have a ton of in your stash that you no longer use? Vellum? Stickers? Die-cut shapes? Fluorescent paper? chalks? Jolee's layered embellishments? Metal tags? Decorative scissors?

Are you willing to play along with us this week and put these items to good use?

I can't wait to see what you come up with!

xo,
Pamage

#32 Inspired by a relationship not yet scrapped

Hello friends!

Another lovely week of spring has gone by and here we are again.

I am super excited to share this page - because it is about a person we all "know".

As I pondered the challenge this week, I really searched deep for all the people in my past that I hadn't yet scrapped. The ones I found missing were stories I wasn't ready to tell. 

Then, I moved on to present relationships and was pleased to find almost every person has a page - or two. Almost every person. Almost.

I was so happy when the inspiration hit me - Lisa was the one person missing from my pages!

I "met" Lisa during LOAD of February 2011 and we became fast friends - albeit through the internet.

So here's my little homage to my special friend

 of course I added loads of pink - that is Lisa's color after all. But I mixed it in with the yellow - because that's my happy color and I think she has more sunshine than she realizes...
 I also added the pretty glittery ribbon because it seemed like the perfect glam accent for a Lisa page.
 The photo I "stole" from one of her photo albums and I hope she forgives me, but I wanted a clear shot of her pretty face and this picture seemed perfect even if it is a few years old. 
Thank you for the little nudge in getting this story done. Like Lisa I feel there is so much more to say so I will be adding a 6x12 page with all the little anecdotes about our projects together, including this endeavor to bring you weekly challenges.

I hope you were able to dig out a story of a relationship previously not scrapped and get it down on paper. I would love to see what you made over on our little gallery {tag WM#32}.

I will be back soon with another challenge for the new week. Thank you again for playing along with us and sharing your memories with our little community.

xo,
Pamage

Sunday 1 April 2012

#32 - inspired by a relationship not yet scrapped

I had such a fun time with my Filipino friend last week. Two days of chatting and reminiscing and catching up and getting to know her and her husband all over again as well as introducing them to my new home country. I hope that she had as much of a good time as I did.

I warned you that I knew I would be scrapping about sweet Alice and I've kept true to my word. Although after two days of carrying my camera around and snapping many photos, I realised that most of the shots of just the two of us are on her camera so I desperately hope to get a full copy of her set when she gets home. Does that ever happen to you? You look through your photos and realise that the ones you thought you took are different to what you actually have!

But first, I actually want to share one of my favourite non-people photos I captured when we were in Cologne Cathedral which is a fantastic example of German Gothic architecture. Just to share so to speak! But it did make me realise that I ought to scrap about my love of architecture in a way that I haven't so far. So there is a connection to this week's prompt :-)


Anyway, on to my layout. I used my Counterfeit Kit again as I wanted the design itself to be quite low-key compared to the message. I made the full 12x12 layout and even journalled on it before realising that the story itself hadn't been told. And so the matching add on 12x6 was created where I wrote out more about our friendship.


There is quite a lot of hidden symbolism here as I realised that the kit had three of the colours of the Philippine flag (blue, white and yellow/gold) and that Alice was wearing red in the second photo which was the fourth colour. I stitched a few scattered stars across the layout again, as a nod to the flag and I added a tiny bit of extra red to my kit to just make the red and blue a little more obvious.



Chevrons made a happy return but I added the stitching for interest and to change it up a bit.




Of course, by adding the extra 12x6 page and not making the two sides at the same time I now realise that there are four blocks of chevrons and eight stars - both even numbers (sorry Pam!) and I too like to add elements in odd numbers. Therefore, I might add another star or three to make that an odd number. Can't do anything more with the diagonals to I'll have to think about that! But all in all, pretty happy with this and even if I never made another layout about Alice (although I hope that I will of course!) I now have her documented in my collection. And that's a good thing.

I'm excited to see what relationships you're going to share with us.

Another week is almost upon us and another prompt too. I'm looking forward to seeing what Pam has in store for us.

See you over at our Flickr group ;-)

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