My Little Shoebox projects

Along with (zillions) of other hopefuls, I applied for the My Little Shoebox DT. And along with (almost zillions) of those hopefuls I was disappointed. Hey ho, nothing ventured and all that.

These are two of the projects I created for the submission.

The first is a cake tin I found at a ridiculously low price at Home Bargains (and am kicking myself for not buying up loads as they are just perfect for teacher pressies - a bit of decoration and add some muffins and it's good to go). Anyway, I digress. I created a layered scene inside the tin and added hanging bits above and below.

The scalloped circle was cut out using my Craft Robo, very handily the largest I was able to cut was just the perfect size for the tin!

I created 'blocks' of acetate by folding strips and attaching to the back of the different elements, each layer having blocks of different thicknesses.

Quite a few of the elements (birds wings, windows, hearts and so on)  were highlighted with Glossy Accents too.

The second project is the card element of the submission.

I created a box fold style card with acetate aperture. Lots of cutting, layering and bling.

And the back is decorated too with space for the written message. (Sentiment stamp Hero Arts.)

Creative Scrappers

Sketch 110 went live yesterday. Another wonderfully easy sketch to work with. And lots of more fabulous pages by the DT can be viewed over on the Creative Scrappers blog.

This is my interpretation. Can't really call it an interpretation to be honest. I'm rather literal when it comes to working with sketches - which is why a great sketch that doesn't need much tweaking is right up my street!


Some fun photos from an after school visit to the local River Gardens. The colours in the photo weren't great (black/white school uniform combined with green grass and blue and yellow play equipment) hence changing the photos to black and white. Not something I do too much of because I really like the reality of colour photos - well for the most part anyhow.

The page also works with the colour combo over at Color Combos Galore this week (148).
Patterned papers - My Little Yellow Bicycle, American Crafts
Alphabets - American Crafts, Doodlebug
Journaling spot - Maya Road
Butterflies - Papermania
Rub-ons and chipboard - My Little Yellow Bicycle
Inks - Ranger distress ink and archival ink
Die cuts - Nestabilities
Other - bling, buttons, brads


Lots of bling, brads and buttons. Yes I sewed them all on individually. Whilst watching the England/Slovenia match. Well, at least it wasn't a total waste of my time ;)


I used some more of the Little Yellow Bicycle Zinnia range (I had pretty well everything sent to me as part of a prize package from Memory Makers magazine just before it ceased publication). I added some of the circle rub-ons to white cardstock, die cut them using Nestabilities dies and (along with everything else) applied a liberal helping of distress ink to the edges. The gorgeously intricate die cut butterflies are a vinyl material and by Papermania.

The proof is in the pudding

For real and metaphorically.

Finished the pages I talked about yesterday. Two had previously been shared - one needed journalling in the little booklet and another needed the journalling block typed out and overlaid on the original one (I had photo'd it as it just began to rain and the ink got smudged).

These are the other four though. All started ages ago - at least a year - either on holiday or at crop.

A real mix of manufacturers on this one.
Patterned papers - Making Memories, Cloud 9, Sassafrass
Alphabet stickers - Little Yellow Bicycle, Adornit
Phrase sticker - 7Gypsies
Rub-ons - Doodlebug
Journal Block - Creative Imaginations
Scalloped edge scissors - Fiskars
Buttons and brads


The journal tags were created by using a font called CBX Tags (from a fonts cd collection). I used WordArt and created a fill and line in slightly different colours to give some interest to the labels. Printed and cut them out. If I had figured out print and cut on my Craft Robo I may have been able to make this task easier! The fonts are Cookie and Adorable Illusion.

This next one uses an absolutely gorgeous paper from Fancy Pants. I really struggled here, I find these full on pretty backgrounds quite hard to work with as I hate covering up the pattern! Instead I just added flowers and brads to it with some scraps of patterned papers around the photograph.


The Live Laugh Love die cut is attached to a strip of patterned paper using dimensional foam so it slots in and out to make the journaling easy to access, but the foam tape means that the die cut sits just at the level I want it to on the page.


Patterned papers - Fancy Pants, Making Memories
Die cuts - Fancy Pants, Pink Paislee
Word stickers - 7Gypsies
Flowers - Prima, Making Memories
Ink - Chestnut Roan chalk ink
Brads, pins and butterfly punch for detail

You can tell this next one was started an age ago - lots of dimensional paint dots which I used to do loads! A mish mash of wonderful Heidi Grace papers, stickers, chipboard and die cuts on here.


Patterned paper - Heidi Grace
Die cuts and word stickers - Heidi Grace
Flowers - Heidi Grace
Label sticker - Jenni Bowlin
Paper frill - Doodlebug
Crystals - Prima, Making Memories, Papermania
Die cut felt - Fancy Pants
Font - Barbie


The number 7 was cut out several times on my Craft Robo, layered and attached with foam pads, with added Stickles.

And finally a page using the wonderful Prima Indeed papers (again!, I just used this range last week for my Creative Scrappers sketch page - 'tis so gorgeous though). Poor Mia was so overwhelmed on her first day of school and only big sis Chiara could console her.


Patterned paper - Prima
Cardstock - Bazzill dotted swiss
Alphabets - American Crafts, Making Memories
Flowers - Prima


The large green scalloped circle was punched from some Prima packaging.

And these are the for real ...


Cakes made by Mia (just a little help from myself). We made double the normal sponge batch from the Be-Ro book and used some oversized cake cases to make these gorgeous butterfly buns - fresh cream no less too. There were 12 when made last night. There are now 4. I think we need to do more baking tonight!

On a mission ...

Have got six layouts on my desk that just need finishing off - final touches, journaling, that sort of thing.

Determined to get them done this morning! And have blogged so I am comitted to it.

Be back later with pics :)

ETA four down, two to go. Yep, I know, I'm sloooooow!

Creative Scrappers

My first creation as part of the Creative Scrappers Design Team is now up. It's a fabulous sketch to work with and I just LOVE all the wonderful pages the others in the DT have come up with. Here is the sketch:


This is my page


Lots and lots of Prima on here. It was so tempting to go with all purple, but I do love adding colour contrast to my pages and so went with the lovely bright green for the extended photo mat and butterflies instead.


I added a couple of strips of crumpled and twisted purple vellum underneath the tulle to add to the texture and dimension. And the tulle really IS white, must be something to do with using flash and getting shadows which shows it a dull grey colour :( I also sprinkled that all important fairy dust over it (aka Stickles) to give the page even more shimmer and shine.


It would be great to see you playing along - there is a prize available, so check out the blog

Couple of must sees ...

Just a quick post as I am busy today ... but you got to visit both Creative Scrappers for the latest sketch #107, it's a fab sketch and ALL of the DT pages are so wonderfully inspiring!


Remember to complete at least one layout over at Creative Scrappers from sketches 106-110 inclusive to have a chance to win a prize from the monthly sponsor.

Also the DT gallery for June over at A Trip Down Memory Lane went live yesterday. We were all given a selection of Bella Blvd ranges and it's great to see the different and wonderful projects and pages which were put together by the team. Visit the gallery to check them all out - remember to click through on to each page - there are three pages in total. I did 5 layouts and 2 cards. I love the stickers and cut apart sheets - they really make embellishing and titling a page so very easy! Check out the shop for the Bella Blvd products. Even better, they have a sale on! Oh - another thing, check out the blog for more inspiration and a Scrapping Bingo prize challenge :)

Here's some sneaks of the pages I created:

More from Virtual Stamping Night

These are the last few cards I created for Virtual Stamping Night over at Splitcoast Stampers last weekend. Time was of the essence, so these were definitely more simple. There was a time limit of 45 minutes per card anyhow.

This first one was for a challenge to dig out a very old, dusty and forgotten flower stamp.


Stamps - sentiment Hero Arts, flowers Penny Black
Inks - Memento, Promarkers
Patterned paper - Chatterbox
Other - Nestabilities die, Fiskars apron lace punch, pearls


Stamps - Hero Arts
Inks - Versamark, Memento, Distress inks
Patterned paper - Basic Grey die cuts from card making kit, including chipboard butterfly
Other - clear embossing powder

This next card was for a challenge to create a baby shower card and matching decorated envelope. Massive search through stamps - almost complete lack of any baby themed ones at all with the exception of a small pack of Studio G stamps, so I resorted to these oh so cute papers from the Little Sprout range from Fancy Pants.


Stamps - Hero Arts, Studio G
Inks - Versamark, Stampin' Up, Distress inks
Patterned paper - Fancy Pants
Other - clear embossing powder, Making Memories dyed tags, Fiskars apron lace punch, Nestabilities dies, buttons, twine

This was the very last card I squeezed in before the deadline. So ultra simple.


Stamps - Hero Arts
Inks - Memento
Patterned paper - Basic Grey
Other - Nestabilities, Prima flowers, pearls