Seaside - Budleigh Salterton

As mentioned in my previous post from a week or so ago,  I am without a laptop so I've had to find other ways to occupy my creative mind until said laptop is repaired and returned to me. 

So for now I have pulled out some old unfinished projects and have been working on them.  Come on, we all know you're not a true crafter unless you have a couple of unfinished projects kicking about in your craft cupboard! 

This project already had all the pictures for it printed out so my laptop was not needed, thankfully.  To be honest it was about 70% complete already, I just needed to add a few more pages along with the pictures, punch holes in the pages for the eyelets, then add the binder rings, a few small embellishments and some ribbon.

This album is proper old school.  I started with 8 x 8 plain chipboard that I then took the arduous task of covering with patterned paper.  

In hindsight I probably should have punched the holes for the eyelets at this point rather than after I had completed the pages but hey, lesson learned! Not too much of the design of the page was lost in the process.

This album documents a long weekend trip we took to the British seaside one summer. We chose a small seaside village near Exeter called Budleigh Salterton. Although Simon had had many typical British seaside holidays whilst growing up, I had yet to experience the joy of a British simple seaside holiday.

I absolutely loved these little colourful sheds on the beach, they were so typically British.  I thought the bright striped paper would work well with these pictures.  Seemingly makes the seaside very fun looking and not to mention oh so colourful! 

We rented a cottage by the beach and then drove down on the Friday morning, taking Rupert with us, staying through till Monday.  It was his first trip to the beach and luckily the place we picked had a dog friendly beach only a short distance away. 

This is the view of the bay at Budleigh Salterton.  It was absolutely breathtaking! We enjoyed an afternoon walk by the seaside and then along the cliffs, stopping for an ice cream to share together.  

Rupert's first view of the sun, sea and sand. He was mesmerized!

One afternoon we stopped at The Cosy Teapot on the high street for a cream tea!  It was scrump-dilly-umptious!

The boardwalk adjacent to the dog friendly beach.  There was also a small fun faire along the seafront. It  made for a lovely afternoon.  

Time for lots of walks along the beach, afternoon naps and warm fires!

Would love to go back again! 

Thanks for having a look. 

Now as this was an old project I am not certain as to all the supplies that were used.  However I do know that I used Graphic 45 Boardwalk Collection, as well as Bazzill cardstock, along with journaling cards by October Afternoon. As well as a lot of the paper was from my old stash I expect there was definitely some K&Co. paper in there.  For the front cover I do know that the chipboard button is by Webster's Pages from the Chipboard Sticker Buttons & Twine line called Color Yacht Club. The letters spelling out Seaside are vintage wood alphabets by Lil' Davis Designs and most of the seaside related stickers, like the individual words, are by October Afternoon from the Seaside collection. 

Teal Simple Stories Album

Hello!

I have been waiting for my new Simple Stories Sn@p album to come in the post the past few days, since the weekend really. I have been laying in wait for the postman pretty much daily. He's probably starting to think I'm either a mad woman or have some kind of dippy crush on him. I only say this because, to be honest, I've never really seen the postman before this week so I can only imagine what he must now think when every day this week as he pulls into our drive the curtain in the front hall window starts twitching and then there I appear in the doorway before he's even come to a complete stop.

Suffice it to say, it came today and I was more than pleased! Mainly I was looking for something creative to occupy me until my laptop comes back, as mentioned in a previous post. I already knew before the album arrived what paper I wanted to use on the front cover - the blue and white chevron paper from the Simple Stories DIY Boutique 12x12 simple basics kit.
 

After I tore into the shrink wrap and cut my paper for the cover I started pulling out all the embellishments that I thought I'd want to use.
 

 

Since the album is about our life I thought it would be apt to use the script lettering "Our Life " die cut I had made. I wanted the cover to be quite simple, include a title, the year and a few embellishments.

 

This picture is where I am laying out the title and paper on the album cover to see if I like how it looks. I do have to say that the inspiration for the style of the title came from a layout by Mel Blackburn over at Studio Calico here.

 I added some American Crafts Thickers for the date and my embellishments - a Simple Stories brad, a DIY Boutique love-heart sticker, a Mambi Sticks puffy sticker and a Studio Calico chipboard arrow banner.

 

The end result

Was happy to have something crafty to keep me occupied. However, its meant to be another week before I get the laptop back so not sure how I will spend that time.

Thanks for stopping by to have a look!

(Blogging is a whole new concept when you have to create your entries via smartphone so apologies for any mistakes or wonky bits.)

Summer is Here! (or it WAS here)

(I thought I had already posted this entry but realised today that I still had it sitting in my drafts folder.)

Today I am catching up on some of my pages from June.  As the summers here in the UK are typically short and sometimes non-existent I decided to dedicate a page to the onset of Summer when it arrived, and was it glorious!  As I mentioned sometimes the summers here can be non-existent, like last year when we had a solid month of rain for the month of June.  This year however it has been quite good, not only unusually warm but for more than a week or two!  Pretty much still going strong as I post this now.  

With this layout I wanted it to be representative of the feel of summer so chose to use really bright colours and accents.  The picture was taken at Pinkney's Green and it was a glorious day. Pretty much picture perfect!

The background paper was from a Studio Calico kit and I wanted it to carry through the top and bottom pocket to appear as if one complete page. I also included a screenshot from my phone of the weather for the day. 

The 06 June sticker is from The Daily Grind line by Simple Stories.  I mounted the title "Summer" onto a bingo card by Simple Stories. The colourful chipboard letters are by American Crafts.  The lettering spelling out "is here" is by Simple Stories as is the "breath of fresh air" sticker below that. The green stars are by October Afternoon.  On the bottom pocket the green bliss Dymo style sticker is Marcella by Kay. The "hooray for today" sticker is Simple Stories and the bright yellow "summer" metal tag is an old embellishment I've had for some time by American Crafts. 

Thanks for having a look! 

Now is a Good Time as Any

Well, as I am without a laptop, which means not being able to print out any pictures or do any proper crafting, I guess now is as a good time as any to do a massive clear-out and a bit of organising. I expect there will also be some purging along the way in the interest of simplifying what I have and getting ùber organised.

The dreaded chaos that needs to be corralled and contained.

To be honest I was probably long over due for such a task anyway. It will help me to de-clutter, get rid of things I haven't used in ages, sort of streamline and simplify what I have and hopefully make my overall scrapping process a bit more efficient, rather than continuing to  spend my time looking for or through my supplies than actually scrapping.

At this point, (yes a day later) as you can see I have made a bit of progress, clearing off my work surface, organising the supply boxes in my cart and surprisingly throwing quite a few things in a give-away or get rid of box.  

Only thing is I won't know what to do with the stuff that I no longer wish to keep. We kinda live in the middle of nowhere, so no local craft shop or even non-local craft shop that I could leave them at for a craft group. We don't have kids so no school to donate them to and don't want to go wandering onto a school campus like some weirdo. I don't have a group of crafty friends nearby that could use them so that's not an option either.  I've tried posting stuff on FB groups for stash overload or SS hoarders before but never had much success so not sure where it will end up. I suppose as long as its transitioned off my desk and no longer contributing to the clutter,  that's a good start!

Looking a bit tidier now! I think realistically I need more space though as I am one of those scrappers who likes to spread out. I have great admiration for those scrappers out there who can scrap from like one portable box and a breakfast tray while still managing to be neat  and tidy about the whole process. I could probably learn more than a thing or two from them!

I'm not sure what I will do for the next two weeks or so while my laptop is being repaired or how I won't descend into scrap withdrawal madness but I guess I will just have to wait and see.  

Maybe the next time you visit I will be posting my blog from the arts and crafts room at the local sanitarium!

Thanks for stopping by! 

(PS-also thankful for smart phones, which is how I did this post, but let me tell you it wasn't the easiest thing nor short in the process, so apologies for any blatant errors or wonky bits!)

Reading!

Hello!

This is just a simple one today.  Again, sometimes it's the everyday stuff that I just don't think about scrapbooking or documenting.  I have seen a few other scrappers online document what they are reading right now so I thought I would create a layout about what I am currently reading.

 I had just finished reading 'If I Stay' and had heard a lot of good things about this YA book, 'Eleanor and Park'.  A coming of age first-love story about this odd couple. So far I am enjoying what I am reading.

 I wanted this layout to be simple, to just focus on the book cover.  I also wanted to echo the written text from a book into the layout somehow so this patterned paper was perfect.  Also, as Eleanor's flaming reddish orange hair was such a big part of who she is and part of the cover art I wanted to use the colour orange as a primary colour in this layout.

 

 I wanted a small label to notate my journalling. I picked this label as it had an antique effect which went well with the patterned paper as well as the feel of the layout. 

 I added a few embellishments, some stickers, the designer brad and then thought it needed something else.  As the book cover and the title had an ampersand in it I thought it would tie in well to use an ampersand as an embellishment and this one couldn't have been better.

The full page:

SUPPLIES | Background paper is brown Bazill cardstock.  The patterned paper is an antique newsprint style paper, which I'm not sure what brand it is simply because I have had this paper almost since I started scrapbooking (which by the way is a looong time). The orange and white polka dot paper is by Echo Park called "Dots & Stripes".  The designed brad is by My Minds Eye from The Sweetest Thing line.  The brown wood ampersand are Thickers called Patchwork by American Crafts. The "let's go!" and "wow" stickers are called Typeset by Simple Stories. The journalling label is by RJB Stone called Sass & Belle. The letters spelling out "Reading" are by American Crafts from the Everyday kit.

Christine  : )