A productive crafting day at the crop

Yesterday I went to EK Craft and Crop hosted by Suzy and Audrey. Despite their being a slight crisis with the heating (not working) and a flooding toilet which meant we had to find the stop cock (which we did) it was a great day. The room soon heated up with all the hot air floating from numerous crafters happily swapping ideas, stories and laughs. I managed another double layout in my Paris album. I can't remember why I decided to make it such an odd size but the plan is to bind it all together in a book form so I think that's why I went with the American page size. although as I do not measure accurately don't hold me to that. 

I also managed to make a card for mum with a great deal of encouragement from the girls as I muttered about not liking making cards as it required neatness and precision. Thank you Audrey for keeping me on track and mum did like it and I did almost get the house tidied and clean before she arrived for her birthday dinner... It helped that I had made the tag earlier in the week using TH Spiced Marmalade and Worn Lipstick distress inks for the background and stamps from Lost and Found and Paper artsy. Suzy suggested the contrasting turquoise and I found a piece of ribbon that finished off and sewed some buttons on. Due to wonky stamping I had to stamp the sentiment again on turquoise.

Scrapping with punches

I began this double layout at the crop last week where the challenge was to use punches but just felt it wasn't finished. I punched a border at both sides using a Martha Stewart Lace Punch and placed the contrasting colour behind it. The mount for the photo came from 7 Gypsies and the journalling tag was part of that packaging.

I mounted this onto some of the contrasting paper and then onto a piece of an old french book given to me by Suzy at the the crop. She also donated the larger punched butterflies and I found the smaller ones in a tin left over from another project.

Unusually for me I added a little bling in the form of butterflies and flower centres as it was a pretty layout to compliment picture of my daughter.

I used more of the french graphics from graphics fairy to add details and the tiny butterflies. I also stamped a few butterflies using the Versamark Turquoise ink which I used to edge the torn edges with. The flowers are prima flowers. I am going to challenge myself to use more embellishments in clusters but whenever I lay them on a layout I tend to remove most of them.

More Hybrid Scrapping

Having created 5 Hybrid LOs recently I have been enjoying playing with this more. These pages will become of a Paris album of double page LOs  using 8 1/2 x 11 pages which I intend to bind with my Cricut. Like many projects it may not ever be finished. I have created a concealed pocket on one of the pages as I have too many photos  but not all should be scrapped so I have decided to place them on tabs in the hidden pockets. This began as a way of using up scraps from a previous LO which you can see a sneak peak of in the previous post. I created the background paper for one page using three images from Graphics Fairy that I then altered the colour on and printed out.

I also printed out journalling on the Carte Postale (this is going to be used throughout the album) and the Fleur De Lys (also all from the wonderful Grahics Fairy site).

I made some ribbon embellishments and added lashing of Lavender Distress Inks.  My one concern is that on the one photo page I thought I was randomly placing and glueing the Fleur de Lys but now they just look off register - oh well it can't be helped - especially as I did not spot this until all was dry. I may find a way to hide this...

not so random more off register...

the hidden caption is above the black fleur de lys

"J'aime rien, je suis Parisienne" sticker on Moped, but I loved it

I have just come back from a wonderful trip to visit eldest son in Paris and saw a moped with this sticker. It is a wonderful city but they do like to moan... I think I took over 250 pictures so the above are just a few from my huge album.