Coming soon - Heidi Grace - Sneek Peek

As some of you may have read on my blog a couple of months ago, I am very honoured to have been asked by Heidi Grace to be a guest designer on her blog. My layouts will be appearing very soon but here are a couple of sneek peeks.

Lily Bee Sketch

I've got a lot of blogging to catch up on. I feel like I have photos, layouts and photos to share that haven't made it to my blog yet. So this week I'm going to try and blog little and often. A layout here, a photo or two here and see if that helps clear that backlog. And next week is half term so that should help.

I made it to Thursday crop last week. There were lots of our lovely group there and it was a buzzy evening. By the end I didnt feel too well and was up all night with a bug and didnt make it to work the next day - but I'm happy to say that im much better now and I managed to scrap a couple of pages before I felt unwell.

The first was a Lily Bee sketch and an excuse to use some of the lovely Lily Bee Victoria Park papers. This cute photo of  Martha was taken at Matthew's birthday party. I love pink and green together and that cute little black and white bow in her hair was perfect for the accent colours.

Back soon

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Scrapbook Starting Point

Delighted to see another scrapbook starting point on Shimelle's blog this week.

This time I did something I've never done before - I did the basic  layout before deciding which photos to use. I've heard friends do this and had some new papers from Gottacraft that I was keen to use so I just went for it.

I started with the papers from Echo Parks Hello Summer and I added some red spotted washi tape fom our crop washi tape swap ( thanks whoever I got that one from!) and a die cut from the new Amy Tangerine line. Once I had completed the design that Shimelle had set I found my photos. I wasn't planning to use two as Shimelle had done - it could have been one or three - but the coats of Matthew and Martha just seem to match the paper. I then added stickers and alphabets from the Echo Park line, brads from Crate Paper from my Studio Calico kit,  blue spotted washi tape and more Tangerine die cuts, and a date die cut from Elle's Studio.

The photo is from Matthew's birthday party at Godstone Farm. It was a showery day but we all had so much fun and managed to take some cover in the petting area.

I must say Im pleased with the layout and will definately be doing scrapbooking starting points of my own in the future.

Lily Bee Sketch Challenge #9

Another layout and another challenge. This is one of my layouts from the crop on Saturday. I was inspired by the sketch on the Lily Bee site. I have liked many of their ranges in the past but the last four ranges they produced are perfect and I have bits from all of them. This layout features the Handmade range but I added a journalling card from one the other lines ( Double Dutch).

I adapted the sketch a little because I only used two photos but this gave me some extra space for some cute bunting, flowers and my cupcake button. I also added some mini buttons to the journalling card. Not the best photos but they tell the tale of a birthday party tea and the memories are more important than the photos.

Basic Grey Challenge

Im behind on my posts. Its the 19th May and I havent yet posted the April highlights. Ive not yet blogged about Matthew's birthday party, and Ive got my 12 on the 12th photos to share as well.

But never mind, blogging shouldn't really be about making myself lists of jobs and putting myself under pressure. I should just do what I can when I can.

Today was crop day and I managed 4 layouts. Had a lovely time as usual scrapping, chatting and shopping.

My first layout was for the basic grey challenge shown here . I love this Plumeria range and although I dont have many photos which include purple, you can bet that any I do over the next few weeks will be scrapped with this line. Lucky then that my mum has a purple coat!

This photo was taken when my mum went up to London on the egg hunt. Ive used a lot of the plumeria range but added some thickers and a gorgeous flower that Ali gave me at the crop which went straight on this layout. Thanks also to Michelanne, I got a bit stuck at one point but she pointed me in the right direction.

Sketchy Scrappers

I've joined a lovely little group of ladies on UKScrappers. They call themselves the sketchy scrappers and each month one of them chooses a sketch and then everyone has a go. Its a lovely way to get inspiration and a good way of sharing.

Ive done two layouts for the group so far. The first was from Pencillines. I used some of my Kasiercraft papers that Sandra gave me in our crop advent swap. They are perfect for farm pictures. The photos were taken when we went to Devon for the weekend and spent one night in a travelodge that backed on to a  field of sheeps. I added some sheep and trees from My little shoebox.

The sketch this month was from Pagemaps. I have been keen to scrap this photo of Matthew and Simon at Bocketts farm in March - it is just so cute.
I changed the location of my photo as the boys were facing left. I also used one space for journalling. I love these Sasparilla papers by October Afternoon. They are very themed and perfect for this picture but they also have lots of other uses and some fab blue/green patterned papers. I cant wait to use them again.

Basic Grey - NSD Saturday Sketch Challenge

I nearly forgot! I did a layout last weekend as part of the Basic Grey challenges for National Scrapbook day. The challenge was this fabulous sketch and I used my new PB&J papers.

The photos are of Matthew at his football class. He does love it and has been to about 5 classes now. He calls it Ball Kick. So sweet!

Thursday Night Crop

Last night was the fortnightly Thursday night crop. I love these crops as sometimes it seems like a long time between monthly saturday crops and it gives us a chance to scrap and share news and have a good old chat!

I completed three layouts last night (well almost - Ive justed added titles and journalling to a couple). One is for my new sketch group so I'll upload that in a different post, but I would like to share the other two.

The first layout features papers from Gottacraft. Im proud to be a design team member for the lovely Sandra and her shop. The papers and embellishments are from the Dear Lizzy Neopolitan range. They are soft muted colours - not often my style - but great for girly layouts and I love all the little embellishements and the details like the jam jars and polaroids.

You can buy a Gottacraft kit featuring these papers here or seperate products from the range here.

It was perfect for scrapping a girlie photo from a recent night out. Im very sad that one of my NCT friends has moved away to be near her family. I will miss her a great deal and Im sorry that Matthew and her daughter won't get to see as much of each other as they have in the past. I really hope we stay in touch. This photo was taken at a meal out that the girls in the group had before Karen headed north.

The second layout is also muted colours, but I love the splash of the coral against the pale duck egg blue. These photos were taken at a recent 2nd birthday party. Did I mention I went to SIX 2nd birthday parties in April? The kids had great fun playing with the balloons and I managed some half decent shots. I love Basic grey and these papers from the Whats Up range were just perfect. I used this sketch here as a starting point

I promise to be back with more layouts and photos this weekend. So come back soon.

10 on the 10th - My holiday to do list

Recently Ive found myself  saying to Matthew 'Mummy and Daddy will take you there one day!' He was watching some of the Planet Earth ive with the lions and elephants while he had his bedtime bottle and I said these magic words. So that got me thinking about the places I would like to take Matthew - some Ive already  been to and some I havent.

1. The Isle of Wight - ok - this is cheating really as we are already booked to go there this summer but I am really looking forward to it. I know Matthew is going to love it - farms, beaches, the donkey santuary, a zoo - the perfect holiday for a 2 year old. And of course the excitement of the ferry crossing to get there.

2. Disney - got to take children to Disneyland at some point. We might go to Disneyland Paris next year for my Mum's 70th birthday.

3. York and Yorkshire. I love York and its beautiful surroundings. Matthew would love the Railway museum. Definately a place to take him to - maybe when he is a little older and can enjoy more of the museusms in York.

4. Berlin - Ive been to quite a few European cities but there was something very interesting about Berlin. Id love Matthew to go there when he is older and learn the history.

5. Italy - my favourite European country. Great weather, great beaches, fabulous cities, amazing food. Im sure we will take Matthew here one day.

6. Kenyan Safari - always been on my dream holiday list - would love to take Matthew.

7. New York - Ive been twice and loved it. Its an amazing city. Hoping Simon would do a couple of activities with Matthew so that I could hit the shops!!!

8. Australia - its a long way to go which is why we have never done it but my good friend there has just had a baby and right now I feel a long way away from her which makes me want to go visit.

9. Canada - I just loved Canada - the scenery and the wildlife was amazing. Id love Matthew to see it.

10. USA tour. Its a bit of a dream really but Id love to drive across the USA. Id love to see what life is like in some of the smaller towns of the USA. I like to spend a couple of months on the road seeing the non-touristy side of the States.

Im sure I wont achieve all this partly because Im not the adventurous type. I actually like to be inside my comfort zone and I like familiarity and dont like the unknown. Having said that when I do go on holiday I always have a great time and Matthew is only young so plenty of time to achieve my goals!

Echo Park - NSD Challenge #4

Yesterday was National Scrapbook Day in the USA. I dont even know if we have one here. Anyway, scrapping is a big thing in the USA. Ive heard a rumour that more people scrapbook than play golf in the USA - not sure if its true but I like to think that it is.

So lots of the big scrapbook manufacturers have been having challenges this weekend. Too many to even think about doing them all, but I did manage one today and maybe will get a couple more done this week.

This first challenge was by Echo Park that you can see here. The  challenge was to use a sketch which is always a good starting point for a layout. I used these fab photos of Matthew playing in the ball pit at a recent birthday party. The circle punch outs were perfect to emphasis the ball shapes and the colours of the A Boys Life Collection were just right.

I enjoyed this challenge and was able to put this page together quite quickly. Perfect!

Just dropping by?

Are you just dropping by from either the UKS homepage or from the Gottacraft blog website. If so then I hope you'll stay and be a follower of my blog.

Next month Im going to be a guest designer for Heidi Grace and Id love to be able to have more people see her lovely products. So if you think you might pop back and read again then please come and follow my blog. A couple of weeks ago I was on 20 followers and set myself a target of 30 - im nearly there. Can I raise the bar to 40 followers?