Pinspiration Sunday

Happy Sunday, everyone!  I hope you've all had a great week and a good start to the new month (still can't quite believe it's already February...)  I have a fresh collection of pins to share with you today so go grab your hot beverage of choice and we'll dive right in.

Currently:

* listening - radio
* reading - The Persian Pickle Club (haven't quite started yet)
* making - Nice People Nice Things embroidery
* eating - toast & peanut butter
* drinking - water
* wearing - jeans, shirt & cardie
* weather - overcast, 3C
* feeling - philanthropic
* wanting - another weekend day (always)
* needing - in the larger scheme of things, nothing
* planning - Persian Pickle project
* thinking - about future possibilities
* loving - quiet time in bed with Oskar
* enjoying - a warm day with a bit of sunshine

And now on to the pins...

On the Bookshelf: Making Miniature Quilts

You see that adorable log cabin mini photo there?  That's my stock photograph!  This mini quilt was made by my mum, Diane England, and some years ago now I photographed a number of her quilts for stock photography purchases (which I sold via my iStockphoto account).  I stumbled over its use last week quite randomly but how cool is that?  And incidentally, if you like the idea of converting full-sized quilt patterns into minis, check out the article.

 

Puddle Jumping Mini Quilt Pattern

Last week I shared with you a new quilter blog I've been enjoying.  This week Camille posted a number of cute mini quilt patterns (at a very reasonable cost).  I love this puddle jumping one.  She also has a cute umbrella one, too.

Ironing Board Caddy

A handy little organiser for your ironing board to keep your tools sorted while you work.  Love the cute little pin cushion, too.

 

Boo Family Shield

I really liked this take on the family shield concept that was presented in Jen Gallagher's "Make It Meaningful" video from the beginning of the year.  The literal shield version Jen made wasn't to my liking but this alternate, more artistic/scrapbook-y version really appeals to me.

Crocheted Owl Hats

Total love!  I have a crocheted sock monkey hat similar to this that I wear for yard duty at work - I get so many giggles from the children, although they sadly don't understand the reference to sock monkeys (this generation, eh?!).

Men's Tie Eye Glasses Case

Here's a cute idea for an up-coming Father's Day or masculine birthday gift idea - make a glasses case out of a necktie.  Pretty spiffy.

Breakfast Brights

And here's a little colour palette inspiration that includes the Pantone 2014 colour of the year: radiant orchid (it even includes orange - how awesome is that?  I'm hooked!)

Picture Day 2008

So you may remember that over the summer my LSS hosted a scrapbook LO contest.  I entered three of my pages but sadly I was the only contestant!  The up-side, of course, was that I also turned out to be the winner, albeit by default.  Anyway, it's taken me about two months - perhaps more - but I finally managed to get down to the shop to pick up my prize pack:

A mini-kit called 'Paris' by a small (unknown to me) manufacturer name Vive Gade (I think).  The black, white and grey-themed kit contained:

• 6 double-sided papers
• 2 washi tapes (one is Christmas-themed)
• 3 designer ribbons
• 3 wooden heart embellishments

While not all of the designs are really my style, I definitely do need more black, white and grey paper in particular so this worked out well.

So as you would expect, I thought I should use some of these new goodies and make something!  I decided that I would continue to scrap my series of class photos.  The darkest black patterned paper caught my eye, as it has that chalkboard blackness to it and in white there are maths equations written all over it.  Seemed like a good choice for a school-themed page.  I also thought the numbered washi tape would work well on a school LO, too.

I wasn't able to find my original photo from my first ever class all on my own.  I think I may have given it to my parents; my step-father finds the whole international schooling concept amazing - he calls it my 'UN class' and every year I have to show the class photo and go through all of the nationalities present.  It's sweet, really.  Luckily, however, a friend had a copy, which she scanned and emailed to me (thanks, Anya!).  My photo developer doesn't print the same size as the school photography company but I enlarged it a little to a 6x8 size, which let me play with a different layout design, which was a nice change of pace.

Picture Day 2008

Here you can see I've layered the black maths paper and a light blue EP paper under the photo and I've run the numbered washi tape like a border across the page.  The background paper is one that my friend Anya gave me a few years ago and I've been saving it for a LO such as this - it even has a very subtle tone-on-tone print of children's game names in the red section at the top; if you look really, really carefully you can just make it out in the photo.

I used the Kensei chipboard Thickers that I've been crushing on lately - it's just such a fun font.  I have, however, taken to gluing them down with a little touch of Crackle Accents by Ranger, since I find chipboard Thickers are notorious for popping off.  As you'll see in the next photo, I'm continuing my trend of including some sort of camera motif on all of these photos and I re-inforced this with a CP slide frame, which I stamped with little potty people to mimic the class photo.  Cute, right?

The journaling card is from Carta Bella's Hello Again collection - the blues just worked really well with the blues already used in the rest of the LO and I thought the 'Let me tell you...' line was a good lead in to the class stats I've been recording.  The little eye glasses and 'looking back' is from the same stamp set as the potty people and the chipboard camera is from CP's The Pier collection.