Digital Scrapping...

Scrapping for me involves several mountains of unorganised stash and continuous hunting for an item I just had seconds ago! It revolves around a table that slowly but surely disappears under piles of paper, fibres, buttons, adhesives, pens, scissors, paper trimmer, Quickutz Silhouette and a ton of other stuff. You only realise the mess exists when you have to carefully push things around to make room for your 10th cup of coffee!! It involves ink on your arms and glue under your fingernails. It involves a considerable amount of swearing when the letters you have carefully cut out refuses to leave your fingers and stay on the paper! It involves ignoring everything else around you for several hours, neglecting the house and the kids, and leaving them to fend for themselves whilst you battle with threading fibre through tiny eyelets! But it also involves a huge amount of satisfaction when you finish the project!


Digi scrapping is sooooooo easy! No mess, very quick, put-your-feet-up and click, drag, drop away until you have a presentable layout in a fraction of the time it would take to thread that fibre through tiny eyelets! Do you get the same satisfaction? No you don't, but it's nevertheless great fun. I spent several hours on a small double layout for a CJ I am in (OK, I'm slow, I know it!). It took me about an hour to create the two digi layouts below..... Spot the difference? It will never take the place of conventional scrapping but as a quick fix it's unbeatable!

This first digi layout really is all about how great it is just to be yourself and chill out, without worrying what you look like.

The Sun has got his hat on!!!!

The sun is out! It’s actually there in sky! I saw it! It’s so good to feel the warmth of its rays upon my frozen shoulders! So I took my cup of coffee outside and sat there eyes closed, face tilted toward the sky. Peaceful too of course as my girls have yet to return from their holiday in Devon (they are coming back tomorrow, YAY!). I do miss them dreadfully but by the sounds of it they are having stacks of fun. Can’t wait to see the piccies of their trip, I’ll pop some on here when I get them developed. They each took one of those throwaway cameras so we’ll probably have lots of blurry pictures of Devon scenery!

Whilst I was enjoying my coffee in the garden I started thinking about what actually makes a good card maker/scrapper – as you do when you sit in the garden with a cup of coffee, eyes closed, face tilted towards the sky. There is of course the obvious artist, those people fortunate enough to be able to put pen to paper and actually come out with something incredible, and not merely something resembling an infant school project! Then there are the people who are good at putting things together. You will find that the people in that group have fab homes, as opposed to the other half whose homes invoke a “WHOA! What happened in HERE??” response. These people are usually good at creating also.

My father was a wonderful artist; I still have some of his magnificent paintings. I used to think that I took after him and was quite a confident drawer. Because I didn’t draw for years that has completely gone! Where the heck it went I have no idea! These days when I try to draw a horse for example it looks more like a bedraggled mongrel whose mother copulated with a truly horrifying alien being! It’s so weird, in my mind I picture this perfect horse but the action of moving that image from my mind to my fingers somehow erases half the horse and replaces it with something totally unrecognisable! I think my imagination has taken a leap from such a height that it has no chance of ever recovering!!

So in my opinion those are the two types of people who have the ability to create something truly exceptional. But does it matter? We all think our own projects are worthy of displaying to the masses and truly that is all that matters! We enjoy creating, and we enjoy giving someone something that we made, and the recipient in turn enjoy receiving a personal card or album created just for them. Lets face it, we can all go to Woollies and grab a card of the shelf, it’s the time and the love we put into our little creations that make them all so very special.

I'm on a Roll!!

Crikey, I'm blogging like the clappers now! Well and truly got me skates on! I guess the nomination as a Rockin' Girl Blogger reminded me that I actual have a blog that perhaps I should update once in a while!

Here's a confession, I never read blogs. They have become so popular these days and there are no doubt many good ones out there, but I only check out the odd few belonging to people I actually know. I am going to make a point of reading more of the crafty blogs that are out there, perhaps they will inspire me to write more in this one!

I had to make a birthday card for my brother last night so decided I might as well make it into a class. I have had so many lovely email from people who really are getting something from the classes, and oh that pleases me no end.

Basic Grey Obscure background paper, with Basic Grey Infuse paper thrown in for good measure. K&Company Light Ideas "Happy Birthday".

Must tell you about my nice little surprise yesterday. My girls, Aimee and Amber, are in Devon with their dad - their mum unfortunately had to stay behind and work. They are having glorious weather down there and spending much of their time in the sea - what a difference a few hundred miles make eh!! Here it is raining, cold and minus 50! OK slight exaggeration, but it's COLD and we haven't seen the sun for gawd knows how long!

Anyway, I digress. So yesterday a guy turns up with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I consulted my internal checklist but as far as I could see it wasn't my birthday, nor had I done anything deserving of flowers. Well it was from my little Devon clan who apparently misses me like crazy! It quite made my day, and quite deserving of some pictures :o)

We have a sunflower growing in the garden which is showing no sign of blooming; there isn't even anything on it remotely resembling a flower head! The girls each brought home a cup of soil from cubs and all the children entered into this competition about who could grow the largest sunflower over the summer holiday. Well this pure excuse for a sunflower wont even get a sniff of the prize! It resembles a runner bean more than one of the flowers in my lovely bouquet. We should have two growing (did you work that out?) but after watering Amber's cup of dirt for weeks nothing seemed to happen. I investigated and it turned out to be just that, a cup of dirt! The dozy woman whose job it was to insert the seeds had skipped Amber's! Aimee is happy to share though so the strange green thing resembling a runner bean belongs to them both!

Must get a new camera!!

I really must get myself a new camera! Currently I am using a very humble Olympus D-545, which is so not meeting my ever-increasing needs! My little Olympus does not showcase any work I do very well at all; often they are barely recognisable as what is in front of me! So I guess I shall start hunting through the plethora of cameras out there!

I don't get much time to "create" these days, with my time taken up totally by work and family, I'm sure you know how it is, but I had to make a wedding card for my niece in Denmark so buckled down and ignored everything else for an hour. I used the new Basic Grey Pheriphery paper, K&Co wedding Grand Adhesion (so cool! It lights up the card and the bride and groom in a cascading light display), K&Co wedding pearls, a Basic Grey rub-on, plus a flourish cut on the Quickutz Silhouette. The card was edged with silver ink, and the flourish dabbed with metallic silver ink. You can't see the effect on here very well but it looks rather nice IRL.

Oh I'm Useless!!

Well I started the blog with all good intentions...........! No excuses for not updating for all those months but really you haven't missed much!

I've just found out that I was nominated as a Rocking Girl blogger - thank you Louise, quite undeserving I fear but quite an honour.

You must pop over and check out Lou's site! She is one of the most talented card makers I know and keep winning our competitions on Charmed! If ever you need inspiration then you'll find it there.

Being nominated means that I in turn must nominate 5 people. That's quite a tough one and requires some serious thinking! OK, after much deliberation these are my rockin' girls:

Caroline

Juliet

Roz

Kirsty

Tracie

If they have been nominated before then they just have again and must find their own 5 rocking girls, hee hee hee.

Using the New Basic Grey Papers....

It has been a very busy week this week and I have literally been rushed off my feet. No time for scrapping but I did manage to create four layouts last weekend with the new Basic Grey papers.

The paper used here (Basic Grey Pheobe) is very busy so I used it to its full potential. The paisley pattern was cut to overlap the pictures. Pictures were matted on coordinating cardstock Pheobe Sausalito.

This is a fantastic picture of my parents. They were dancing and totally unaware of the picture being taken - you cannot fail to see the deep love they shared.

Basic Grey Scarlet's Letter papers and fibres.



I thought the two days we had snow this year should be documented and thus this layout was created. The larger picture was first thing in the morning and it was still dark outside, the smaller pictures were taken on the second day.

Again Basic Grey Scarlet's Letter paper, plus distressed Blitzen paper for the circle.

The final layout below was for a sketch challenge on Charmed Craft Talk. It was from a day out in Kew Gardens when they had the large glass sculpture exhibition.

Basic Grey!!

The new ranges from Basic Grey arrived yesterday. Out of all the products I stock Basic Grey are my firm favourites, these four new ranges did not disappoint. I was like a kid in a candy store oohing and ahhing. I'm a bit of a fibre freak and the fibres for these ranges are just so lush! We had received a huge stack of pre-orders so was packing until 10pm last night; as I had started work at 8am yesterday morning it was 14 hours of solid work - boy am I feeling it today!! I have developed a bad back which has been playing me up all week, today my wrist is also in agony and I suffered the paper cut to beat all paper cuts, right under my right index finger! It went deep man!! That hurt I gotta tell you! BUT, as it was a Basic Grey paper that did the deed I can forgive!

For Heavens Sake!!

There I was, sitting in the garden enjoying looking at the birds in the trees - there are many that visits regularly and I am getting to know them individually which is so cool. There was a brief interlude between rain clouds and the sun was actually shining, so I made the most of it. I even spied a woodpecker, which is the first time ever I have seen one outside Denmark!! Quite amazing that it found its way into London (not that it had journeyed from Denmark of course, but it is normally native to woodland and not a city bird)! It was pecking on a branch like mad, trying to attract a partner perhaps. After a few of it's very distinctive, and loud, cries it unfortunately flew away. Quite uplifted my spirits seeing it though.

So there I sat basking in the wonderment of seeing the woodpecker - picture the moment if you can. My eyes casually wandered to the left, and there they were!! Couldn't get away from them! My neighbours tiny Y-fronts! Now I am sorry but if you hang out your husbands' smalls surely you would keep them below fence level and not fly them like the proverbial flag for all to see??? This washing line is hoisted up on a tall pole so that it hangs about 15 foot in the air - high enough for the entire neighbourhood to see several pairs of dark blue y-fronts and sometimes a pair of US stars and stripes boxers!! NASTY!!!

This is not an isolated incidence you understand, it has been going on for months and months, YEARS! Come rain or shine, winter or summer, there they are!! Now this guy is almost 70 and I am very sorry but I have no wish to see where he packs his meat and teo veg! I get on with them really well but this really IS taking it too far and is an extreme invasion into my peace of mind! It's giving me nightmares!! Brrrrrrrrrrr..................

You have to see it to really appreciate how ghastly it is! Imagine having a summer BBQ and enjoying a friendly conversations with your chums Your eyes gaze slightly to the left and THERE THEY ALWAYS ARE!!! There's just no getting away from them. In my dreams I am chased by several pairs of navy y-fronts and a pair of US stars and stripes boxers!!

Valentines Day

Not written for a few days but really all I have been doing is work, work and work! It's been incredibly busy since the start of 2007 - long may it lasts!

My girls (Aimee 10 and Amber 8) really enjoyed the snow whilst it was here (one day!), I took a few pictures of them in the snow and will have to get my scrapping hat on again soon to capture these rare moments. Shame it was on a working day or I would have taken the girls sledging. I have a sledge that sits unused in the shed! I remember my childhood days in Denmark where we would go sledging, ice skating, build snowmen and igloos all throughout the winter months! We used to wade to school thigh-high in snow! These days global warming have well and truly put paid to all the masses snow in Denmark, it's a crying shame!

And so it is almost Valentines Day. Not sure if I agree with celebrating this day although the sentiment is OK. Show someone you love them - shouldn't you do that every day? Does a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates from your guy make up for a year of sitting on the sofa issuing commands? Not speaking from experience here but I know many women with a bloke like that! It's nice for the teenagers of course who could send a card to someone they secretly fancy. When I had my other shop I always got lots of Valentines cards through the door from secret admirers. I must admit that I secretly enjoyed that. I of course imagined they were from dark, tall, handsome hunky strangers - on reflection they were probably from a bunch of spotty teenage boys having a laugh!

Anyways, I have been having a bit of a relaxing Sunday morning (slap my wrist!) and made some Valentines cards for the site. Here are some of them.

Circle Journals

I'm in two circle journals at the mo, one on my own site with my lovely members, and one with other retailers - we are all UKS sponsors. This weekend I managed to get no less that three entries done for the Charmed Craft Talk circle. No I wasn't late! I had been sent the CJ's early and as I felt in a creative mood this weekend I did them all.

Here's my etry into one, theme for this jounal is "Garden Flowers".

Second one is themed "Friends". Papers used are from the Basic Grey Blush range (love, love, love) I used BG Magnetic Snaps for the closure of the book. Here's a collection of pictures from that LO.

Finally here is the third layout; theme "What makes me smile".

I enjoy the circle journals. Mini layouts are so much fun.