~ Little Miss Sunshine! ~

Good morning readers! This is the final page I created at the Like For Ever Retreat at the beginning of March. As soon as I took these photos of my girl cat 'Millie' I knew what title I wanted to use. She loves to lay in the cat tree in the sunshine.

The fabric chipboard embellishments on this layout have been in my stash for YEARS!! and I am so excited to get them used up on this page. They were from a ScrapaGoGo kit I had a very long time ago. I spritzed the suns with Heidi Swapp Gold Shine mist which the lovely Caroline Steele lent me.

Fingers crossed for some more sunny days as we go in to Spring so I can take lots more bright photos.

Happy Crafting!

~ Off the page ~

Hi there, I hope you are embracing the 4 day Easter weekend and managing to get some crafting done or creating memories to scrap. Today I'm on a baking mission ready for work tomorrow, I'll try to photograph and share them tomorrow.

Today I am sharing the 'Off the page' project from Saturday night at GoGoGetaway. It was designed and taught by Esther who is new to the GoGo team.

We decorated a plain back notebook from The Works and made it in to this beautiful useful piece of stationery.

We added white gesso to the cover then Ranger glue and seal covered with white tissue paper. This was then stamped on using stazon and stencilled using distress ink. The book paper was torn and stamped along with the flags. All then layered up and stuck down using the glue and seal product.

I think this is a lovely book which I may try to replicate as Christmas gifts.

Happy Crafting!

~ 9x12 Love @ GoGogetaway ~

Welcome back! Today I am sharing a few more of the layouts I created for the 'Be Inspired' Challenges at GoGoGetaway last weekend. These layouts are all 9x12 to fit in to my Thailand and Laos album.

This one was created using one of the colour schemes although I omitted the purple which was also included. This is the absolutely gorgeous 'Hello Sunshine' collection by Cocoa Vanilla Studio which I managed to pick up at the Like For Ever Retreat.

It's beautiful bright colours work perfectly for your summer trips or holidays. I love the beautiful aqua colour in this collection and the bike in the wood veneer collection worked perfectly (to be honest I bought them specifically for the bike!).

Next was a 12x12 sketch which I adapted to use on a 9x12 page. I did this layout in the early hours of Sunday morning and must admit it isn't my favourite. Although the more I look at it the more it grows on me.

The last of my challenges is a 9x12 pocket page. The album I bought had a few different types of pocket pages in it so I am determined to add them in to my album. Also after my class last week at the Like For Ever retreat that Jackie taught I really like how they look mixed in to an album.

 

So this layout documents our Thai cooking class which we did in Chiang Mai. My fiancé isn't very good at cooking but he really enjoyed this. I have used the 'Free Spirit' Cocoa Vanilla Studio Collection to create the small cards to fit the pages plus some extra bits from my stash.

I really like the way this turned out. Just need to do the reverse side of it now.

Thanks for reading!

Pop back at the weekend to see the 'off the page' project from GoGoGetaway.

Happy Crafting!

~ Be Inspired @ GoGoGetaway ~

Not only were the classes a little different this year at GoGoGetaway but the challenges were also revamped. Instead of lots of different sketches, this time we had 2 sketches, 2 recipes, 2 mood boards and 2 colour schemes. We could use them one at a time or mix them up together.

This layout uses mostly Basic Grey 'Typeset' collection with a few other bits from my stash. It was for Niki's 'So Glam' mood board. She had cut all the delegates a heart cut file which was featured on her board.

I love this black and white photo of me and my work friends post theatre. I'm really in to my journaling at the moment and seem to have written quite a lot on some of my layouts.

This time I used Rebekah's sketch to create a layout using my April Like For Ever kit which contained MME 'On Trend 2'. I love this collection but actually really struggled to use its big bright bold patterns.

I did a little mixed media on the background, adding some mists and texture paste coloured with gelatos. I am totally in love with the plastic gold shiny words in the collection.

Next I played around with one of the recipes which was to use a large 8x10" photo. I absolutely love this photo of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and was pleased I could showcase it in this layout.

The embellishments were all from various different collections from my stash that I had taken with me.

Thanks for reading I will be back tomorrow with some more of the layouts I created for the challenges at the weekend.

Happy Crafting!

~ GoGoGetaway Classes ~

Last weekend I had a fabulous time at GoGoGetaway @ Theobalds Park. This is the fifth time mum and I have been to the March Getaway and we always have an amazing time. This year they have altered the class format to allow for some longer class times and more complex techniques. I really loved the new format and the classes seemed less intense and better for less experienced crafters.

My first class was 'Feel the Heat' by Janice and used the Stampendous Encrusted Jewels product to create a distressed metallic effect down the side of the photo and also on some of the embellishments.

I loved the effect of the Encrusted Jewels on the side of the photo. It was a quick process and was a nice relaxed class to ease you in on the Friday night. I'm desperate to finish my India album so quite a few of my layouts feature these photos.

My second class was called 'Global Impressions' by Lorraine. It features the technique of using inks to colour on an embossing folder then putting it through a bigshot machine to colour the impression on depression.

 I love the bright clean crisp colours of this layout. We had a choice of colours and embossing folders to use. Also we had supplies and time to have a play around with the different effects and then choose the ones we thought fitted best with our layout.

My third class created by Lisa, it was one of the new style longer classes and it was three hours in total. In this class we were taught how to use the Heidi Swapp Minc Machine and given a small supply of the gorgeous foils.

We foiled the title and lots of butterflies. It's quite fiddly to do and we kept losing the foils whilst trying to place it in the Minc folders.

We created our own chipboard frames to go round the photos. One of the things I love about it at GoGo is that they are more than happy for you to alter the design to suit your style or photo size as long as you can do it with the supplies in your kit.

This class created a beautiful double page spread. Its hard to show the foil effect on the photos but it is beautiful. Another one to go in my India 2015 album.

The final class was a 2 layout class and was split over the morning and afternoon on the Sunday. This class was designed and taught by Niki Rowland and featured designs using the Silhouette Cameo.

The first layout uses a triangle background cut file which we backfilled with lots and lots of triangles cut from patterned paper. The frame s raised up on 3D foam pads and is really effective.

 

My mum took her selphy printer to the retreat and these photos are actually from the Friday before the getaway started. The next layout also features photos from the theatre on the Thursday evening.

This time we used a background cut file to trace and cut out all the pebbles and in between sections to create this design. Cutting out the pebbles was very time consuming but not difficult so it was a nicely paced class.

 

 I had a brilliant weekend and spent time with lots of lovely people both old and new. We are already planning to book for March next year.

Happy Crafting!

~ Destination Mini Album ~

This was my first self paced class at the Like For Ever Retreat. I pretty much spent the whole of the Friday night doing this and then finished the journaling and decorated the album cover when I got home on Sunday evening.

When Nicola first put this class up on the retreat Facebook group I knew I wanted to do it. I have travelled to India five times now and have different scrapbooks for them. I wanted to create this mini album to cover all the trips so I could have it out on my coffee table for people to look at.

My first trip in 2004 on holiday to Kerala with my mum. We did a 5 day tour in the middle and saw some beautiful sights.

My first wild elephant sighting.

In 2006 saw mum and I travel as part of a Girl Guide group to Pune to do community work and then on to see the Golden Triangle.

2009 saw us return to the Girl Guide and Girl Scout World Centre in Pune where we did more community work followed by a trip to Ranthambore National Park.  

This is one of the most amazing experiences in my whole life.

We saw tigers in the wild on 4 occasions!

In 2013 I lead a group of 3 adults and 8 teenagers to the Guide Centre in Pune followed by a trip round the Golden Triangle.

I took my fiancé to India on a two week South India tour in 2015. We ate fantastic food and saw some brilliant sights.

Despite there being a lot of pages here I have hundreds (maybe thousands!) of photos so I'm considering adding more pages to the album.

Happy Crafting!

x

~ Ta Prohm ~

One of my resolutions this year is to try and get my Vietnam and Cambodia album somewhere near complete. It seems like such a long time ago but it was only 2012.

We spent three days visiting all the temples at Siem Reap ending with the infamous Angkor Wat. However, for me this temple with the trees growing out of it was my favourite. Ta Prohm was used as a film location for Tomb Raider. It was stunning!

I've used the Webster's Pages new Painted Passport collection. The background is 'Stay Curious' with 'Today Paper' edging the photos. The letter stickers are also from the same collection with a few added embellishments from my stash.

Happy Crafting!

~ Julie's Pillow Present ~

One of the lovely subscribers from Like For Ever, Julie, gave us a page kit as our pillow present. She had very kindly cut out some foam shapes and added stitching details. We just had to add a few pieces of WRMK 'Crush' ephemera from the Like For Ever February kit.

It should have been an 8.5x11.5 layout but I changed it to 9x12 so it would fit in my travel album. I love this photo of me and my fiancé in Vang Vieng, Laos. Although we were travelling on a group tour we decided to have a night to ourselves. We sat around chatting and eating snacks.

I inked the edges in black to give the embellishments more definition and added some glittered heart thickers. I love layers and this layout is perfect for the kind of thing I aspire to.

Happy Crafting!