Mignonne's Birthday

This was one of the last times I was with my Sixth Form friends. We gathered for a birthday, at a very fancy hotel, we had a room to ourselves and everything! It felt so grown up!

I loved collecting all of the patterns together for this one. As a group, we were wearing such a variety of dresses, I tried to pick out colours from all of them, The red is dominant due to the colour of the walls, and it brings a grounding to the different contrasts.

I like using my patterned paper. Their designs complement each other, making it unnecessary to crowd the page with embellishments which I own very little of. I use a few on each page, just to tie things together, such as this journalling box. Then I let the patterns and the pictures speak for themselves.

Blue Wedding

This was the first wedding I'd ever been to, and it was beautiful. Very well done, the dresses were gorgeous. It was just a shame that we don't get on with that side of the family...

I picked up on the colour scheme for this layout, the blues were so pretty against the white. I was lucky that I had a large amount of gems and embellishments that matched them. I incorporated the favour bag as a title, which adds a nice touch, meaning that patterned paper would have been overkill. 

This page is so delicate, it's one of my favourites, that's most certain.

DIY: Mini Ribbon Flags

I thought today I'd share a quick little DIY on how to make these little flags. One of the things, I feel, my stash is actually lacking in is small embellishments like these which I can use on my scrapbook pages and on cards. They could even act as little cake toppers! I'm sure there are other similar tutorials out there, but this one works for me.

They're really quick and simple, and can be made to suit any colour scheme.

Equipment:

Ribbon

Wooden cocktail sticks

Stapler

Scissors

1) Fold the ribbon to the desired length of your flag. My advice is not to cut this just yet, as if the staple goes wrong (which it did for me a couple of times) you're not wasting any ribbon.

2) Staple the fold of the ribbon at an angle. You want to get the staple close enough so that the cocktail stick can slide into the channel created, but not too large that it will fall straight out again. The angle is to help the cocktail stick remain in place.

3) Test the channel created. The image above shows a staple placement that is pretty much perfect. If your staple isn't quite right, just cut the ribbon off at the staple and try again from step 1.

4) From here you can trim both sides of the flags equally. Flat edges work well, but I prefer the pennants as in the first image. It's all down to personal preference.

I can't wait to use these on my projects!

Converting to 12x12

Late last year I decided to transfer my scrapbooking to the 12x12 format. I had previously focused on just using A4 pages and 8x8's in a ring binder. This meant I had some adjusting to do. Mostly, this just meant choosing a background page to mount the already existing pages onto, so was of little hassle. It did make me realise, though, that even in the few months I have been scrapbooking, these earlier pages are so very different to the ones I have produced recently. While they may no longer be my favourites, they do hold a place in my album.

Can you see the differences between your earlier pages too?

Best Friends

Meet my best friend, Emma. She'll kick you in the shins and throw insults at you, but she will also bring you cake and chocolates and pretty wool when you are ill. I miss not seeing her everyday.

This page is one where I let myself use all of my new stuff, nothing here is even a year old. They just go so well together, and suited the picture that I saw it fit to keep them all together. 

It also helps that this red is one of my favourite colours!

Small craft haul

Earlier this week I received an order that I put in with Hobbycraft. I'd been craving some new crafty goodies for a while, and I couldn't wait long enough to visit the store in person. This is not a sponsored post, I'm just really excited to use all of these in my craft projects!

First I picked out this rainbow coloured polka dot 12x12 Album with some extra page protectors. I've been keeping pretty much up to date with my layouts for 2015, but I'd yet to find an album to actually house them. When I got an email through last week with this album marked down to £7.50, it's what started this min shopping spree. It feels good to give these new pages a home.

I also chose these blue and red paper flowers. I find these so versatile on both scrapbook pages and on cards. The red ones are new to me, but hopefully I'll use them as quickly as I did the blue ones the first time round!

I've had my eye on some wooden embellishments for a long time, and finally decided to jump for it. I plumped for this tea inspired set, mainly for projects I would make for my mum. She loves tea, and I figured these would work well there. I also chose these generic flowers, as I use flowers in my projects all the time. They also sort of reminded me of the white rose of York, but that may just be because I'm tuned into that sort of thing...

These were something different for me, but I'm really looking forward to using them. I've just started watching some YouTube videos on scrapbooking, and word stickers come up all of the time, I spotted these Heidi Swapp stickers, and was surprised, as usually Hobbycraft doesn't usually stock brands that I recognise from hearing these American crafters speak...

These two were not from Hobbycraft, but from The Works. As you can see, just a pack of wooden frames and some double sided tape that I used as an excuse to spend some pondering time on my own and not traipsing around looking at soil and herbs,,,

Have you bought anything new recently? Can you recommend anything? If you're from Britain, where do you buy your craft supplies?

Happy Rachel

This photo is from the 14th August 2014, when I realised I had a place at the University of York. I was ecstatic, even then. Hence why I'm so bummed out about this year.

In terms of scrapping this picture, I didn't really have any embellishments to go with the colours in the picture, so I started pulling different pieces of patterned paper out of my stash. My stash is basically just a pile of papers that came free in magazines, so to find things that match can be somewhat of a novelty sometimes. These just ended up on top of each other, and after I'd messed around with the proportions, I came across this design. I still haven't added the journalling yet, but that will go on the gridded card tucked into the left hand side. 

To be honest, because I love the photograph so much, the lack of embellishments doesn't bother me that much at all.

Do you get that? When a photo is just too nice to overpower?

Creative Outlet: Swing Dance

In my first term, I joined the Swing Dance Society. I miss it so much. 

For those of you who don't know, swing dance covers the period of dance from the 1920s to the late 1940s, including Charleston and Lindy Hop. It's a period of social dancing, and we emulate this today at our swing society by not dancing with the same partner for more than five minutes.

The photo here was taken during one of our Halloween workshops. Here we were attempting a dance called 'Psychic Lindy', whereby we were not allowed to communicate to our partner, nor were we allowed to hold hands. The hold is usually key for the lead to tell the follower what's going on, but here we had to focus on the body language of the lead and predict what was going to happen. As a follower myself, this was definitely brain taxing, but it made it all the more clearer as to what signs and signals to look out for when doing regular swing techniques.

As the photo was quite dark and busy, I kept the layout quite light and simplistic. Everything but the title and background paper came from my stash - I've had the large silver heart for about eight years! I still need to add the journalling, but otherwise this page sums everything up beautifully.

How do you document your hobbies? How often do you try to use up your stash?

My Dear Mama

Mother's Day is coming up this Sunday. I always like to keep up the tradition of making her a card each year. It's a way to show how much you care, everything can be personalised, and the time spent is worth it for our mother's. This year, I kept it pretty simplistic, adding the personal touch by using my own greeting for her: Mama. 

I'm not sure when exactly I started using it, but it's stuck. I sound like someone from Downton Abbey... But it's fun. I love my Mama. I don't know what I'd do without her. She's helped me so much, looked after me particularly in the past three months when I've been so ill. This little card may look simple, but that small sentiment makes it personal.

And isn't that why we make cards in the first place?

So here's my tip: use a nickname or a pet name on a card for a loved one. It will show them just how much thought you've put into it.

How do you make your card making personal?