August Haul & Amsterdam Title Page

Well, I'm happy to say that the first week of classes is over and it's the weekend!  Time for a much-needed rest and a return to crafty goodness.  I have two things to share with you today - the first is a video of my August 2Peas box of goodies (AKA the 'haul' video) and the second is a layout using several of these new supplies - yeah!  So, let's get started, shall we?

My latest purchase has focused on two collections: The Pier by Crate Paper and Hello Again by Carta Bella with a mix of embellishments that will compliment both of these collections and easily be rolled into my existing stash.

Note: My apologies for some of the funky shadows - everything looked fine when I was setting up and of course during filming huge clouds rolled in and blocked out the natural light.  And a freight train chose to pass by half way through, too - the unpredictability of living on an active railway.

And now a new layout using some of these fun, new supplies.  This is a title page to go into my travel album for my Netherlands chapter.

Amsterdam

It features a photo enlargement from Keukenhof Gardens and I chose the large, rainbow chevron paper from The Pier to compliment and draw out the beautiful colours of the flowers in the photo.  I also used the Kensei chipboard Thickers for the title and layered them on top of my photo in some white space.

I wanted to keep the embellishments somewhat simple so as not to detract from the photo but I just couldn't resist clustering in some slide frames.  I backed each of them with coloured paper and layered up stickers, flair and a cork arrow.  I also used a few more of my Amy Tan Yes, Please vellum stickers - the tree was just too perfect for this LO and I loved how perfectly the 'delightful' sticker fit into the frame and paired it with a 'memories' phrase sticker, which leads nicely into the title further along the page.

And that's it - just keeping it simple today.  I feel like I've been out of my scrapping routine for some time now am feeling a little rusty so this was a nice warm up to get back into the groove.  Expect more soon.

Soaking Up the Sunshine from Top to Toe

Do you ever have times when you're working on a layout and you think to yourself, "This is taking forever - what's wrong with me?!" and then you have days when you think to yourself, "I've been at this for hours - I love it!"  Well, this new layout is totally that second one - guess I was just really feeling the creative groove yesterday.

Soaking Up the Sunshine from Top to Toe

The inspiration for this layout came from one of the starting points from Shimelle's Hitchhiker's Guide to Scrapbooking class, which I'm currently working my way through.  I have a particular weakness for designs that use layered up stripes of patterned paper; it's one of my favourite designs that I'm happy to go back to and scraplift repeatedly.  The colour scheme inspiration for this page actually came from one of the photos I took at this beach, that featured the pretty sun umbrellas in a soft, candy floss pink, which lead to the monochromatic palette.  I knew I wanted to use a variety of arrows but the heart motif that repeats around the page was complete serendipity again (until I realised just how much had hearts on it and then I ran with it).

I actually started first by designing the central embellishment for the page - the twine flower sun.  The lovely cream/gold twine was actually sent to me in a package and I paired it with some gold sewing thread in my stash.  Then I used this tutorial to create the twine flower, layered up a patterned MME brad through the eyes of a shiny yellow button and popped it on top of the flower.

Then I got to work on the page design.  At first I didn't think I had much soft pink in my stash but to my surprise, I actually had more than enough and decided to use up those scraps.  The original starting point was quite linear and I wanted this page to have a breezier, airy feel about it so I tilted the paper stripes and staggered their heights and layered the washi tape borders underneath the stripes so it just peeks out here and there.  Since I wanted the sun to be the focus of the design, I separated out the photos and got to work on that long title (there is something wonderful about long titles, isn't there?).

Finally, embellishment clusters.  I used a variety of Amy Tan/AC, EP, MME, BG and Simple Stories items and I punched little gold hearts from some gold ribbon tape, also saved from the same package as the twine - I seriously need to buy myself some of that.  I also discovered the cute banner paper from EP's Hello Summer collection features a number of pink banners, including one that reads, "I have sunshine in my heart today." - perfect!  Snipped those out and layered up with some dimension on the top, then used an Amy Tan/AC branding stripe with adorable pink hearts to ground the page.

I haz a happy.  <3

Are You Ready for Adventure?

So last year my Granny came to visit me in Sweden.  It was a pretty big deal, considering she was 82-years-old and the first member of my family to visit me in the 10 years I've lived here.  Needless to say, I documented every day we spent together and then worked my butt off creating identical albums for the both of us to remember this special time together (I gave her her copy as a Christmas gift - she loved it).

Anyway, having taken Shimelle's Cover to Cover class (which I highly recommend, btw), I've been keenly aware that I needed a page to link my annual 2012 and my Our Story: Sweden 2012 albums together.  Without this link, I have a huge gap in my annual album, which is obviously not representative of reality.  I just hadn't figured out how to make the link, since I didn't want to re-create another identical page as the first page in my upgrade album to live in my annual album.

Then I remembered that I had a second shot of that same photo already printed and that I'd pre-pulled the fabulous map print from Allison Kreft's Composition & Colour series and Amy Tan's text border stripe from Yes, Please - the beautiful pastel colours work wonderfully together so I got down to work yesterday and came up with this:

Are You Ready for Adventure?

Initially I had intended to use an OA Cakewalk teal/green grid print for the background but then I spied this adorable Little Yellow Bicycle cloud print that I've always adored (and bought like 4 pages because I loved it so much) and I knew I had to use it.  I love how the combination of sky/cloud and rotated map print gives the impression of looking down while flying, which I thought was rather fitting for the topic of flying overseas.  In fact, I had originally planned for the map square to be straight but when I saw it askew on my work table, I loved how much more interesting the page became.  I was also very happy to finally use this chevron arrow transparency, also by Allison Kreft - I bought it a few months ago and every time until now that I've tried to use it, it just disappears in the busy patterns/colours of the paper I've tested it on.

I'm also making a conscious effort to start using my BG Knee Highs & Bow Ties chipboard pieces and I broke into my new MME word stickers for the title.  You can't see it here but on the opposite side I needed the word 'for', so I had to cut it out of a phrase but it works well regardless.  I was also pleased to have another opportunity to use these green flocked Thickers - they were sent to me as a free gift from a magazine and to be honest, I really dislike them.  Green is my least favourite colour so they don't get used much but I like how they work in this design so bonus points, indeed!

One more detail shot to leave you with for today.

I Can Sleep Anywhere

Went to bed last night planning to spend my morning basking in the glorious sunshine on my balcony, stitching up a new embroidery block.  Instead, I woke up to a completely overcast sky - so disappointing!  However, it was an excellent opportunity to get back to scrapbooking without feeling guilty for not being out in the fine weather.

I got to thinking about the start of this layout over the weekend.  Not that you'd know by looking at the photo, but this is from my recent trip to Barcelona.  It was Good Friday and my girl friend and I were heading back home - unfortunately, there were no direct flights with SAS from Barcelona to Copenhagen so we made a loop around all three Scandinavian countries on the way home!  Barcelona to Oslo, Oslo to Copenhagen and finally Copenhagen to Malmö (that last leg is just a 20 min. train ride, thankfully).  Alice (my friend) marveled at my ability to fall asleep despite noise and everything else so she snapped this photo as documentation.

 I Can Sleep Anywhere

I don't have a lot of dark coloured papers in my stash but I had recently picked up this Panduro Hobby-brand paper.  It was distressed with a bluish wash around the outer edges so I cut it up and turned the edges into the center to help draw focus into the photo.  The rest of the papers are from Yes, Please by Amy Tan for American Crafts and I added in some vellum to add some softness.  I layered up the word definition strips from Yes, Please, which I thought worked really well to reinforce the story in the journaling.  I also topped the page with a strip of Dear Lizzy white crepe paper border and a pale blue velvet ribbon; I really liked the curtain-like effect it added to the layout and again, more softness, texture and a dreamy quality.  Then I sprinkled a bunch of vellum and blue scrap paper punched stars onto the background with some rhinestones for twinkle.  Oh, and just for some silly fun, I added a few glittery 'z's and an asterisk.  :D

For the title, I wanted the 'anywhere' to be large so I used the new Amy Tan vellum alphas in the turquoise, mixing the lighter and dark letters.  A bit of silver glitter Thickers, Amy Tan again, for the word 'sleep' and some small Basic Grey letters for the rest.  I also stitched with my sewing machine a few times underneath 'anywhere' to literally underline the word.

The pinwheel I made from some Yes, Please paper that has triangles/squares in an uncut pinwheel pattern.  The original was a little large so I trimmed it down to 2" square and then cut along the diagonal lines - super simple - popped in a decorative brad and done.  There was a large bit of negative space in the photo just above the pinwheel that was really bugging me so I stamped out a bit of vellum to tuck into the space.

I also toyed around at including some clear and white chevron transparency but it wasn't working the way I wanted it to.  Then I realised that the little triangles I had cut out along the chevron edge made neat little semi-transparent arrow heads so I stitched them down pointing toward the photo.

And now the weather is back to being sunny and lovely - hurray!