Solo Eclipsing

Ah, the solar eclipse. One of the key moments in March. Can you remember it? I can. I was sat outside, curled up under a blanket wearing my thick coat, hat and gloves, peering miserably up to the cloudy sky hoping desperately that the cloud would break and I would be able to see those little slivers of sun. I got lucky, but only after some considerable waiting.

I kept this layout monochrome to help emulate that cloudy day. Using circles and stars helped suggest the moon and the sun, and the papers work well together. I used co-ordinating embellishments in black and white, trying to stick to a vaguely circular theme.

The title was actually something I borrowed from one of my friends' snapchat titles... she was watching the eclipse alone too, and it stuck in my head. It fits really nicely, and it helps remind me of that snap that morning. I still have to fit my journalling in, but I can find a place for that no problem.

So Very Lucky

It's taken a few days in the post, but finally I have something to share with you! I was extraordinarily lucky to win the National Scrapbooking Day giveaway over at Elle's Studio! I was thrilled, I never seemed to win anything when I was younger, even coin tosses I notoriously lost, so to find myself so fortunate now is pretty unbelievable.

It all came, all the way from the states, nicely neat and packaged... I loved the little pink concertinas, they made it feel so special!

Below is a picture of everything I found amidst the pink paper... I pulled each packet out individually, and was amazed each time as there kept appearing more, and more, beautiful supplies! I'd never really branched into the big scrapbooking brands before, but the quality and gorgeous colour schemes of the Elle's Studio collections is simply gorgeous!!

One of the first things I found were the past three months kits. In terms of scrapbook kits, they're surprisingly well priced, and I've often thought of purchasing some before... In fact, I have since ordered the February Kit too, as I just fell in love with them instantly - such variety, and everything was so usable... gorgeous.

One of my favourite collections that came in the kit was the Shine collection. The bright, sunny colours really evoke the sense of the summer sun... I'm already dreaming up a few projects...

The Love You More collection was one I was surprised to enjoy quite so much... I've never been a 'Valentines' sort of person. But, the pieces here are so versatile, and not at all overwhelmingly 'pink', I'm sure I can find ways to work them in to even everyday projects.

Sycamore Lane has more of an autumnal feel to it, and I was delighted to see that, quite frequently, the word autumn had indeed been used, as opposed to the word fall, which is uncommon here. the rich pri8mary colours, while different, also work surprisingly well with the other collections.

Penelope was a cute collection, and it made me want to create a few pages with my sister in them... which I think is the intention! The pinks may be a bit overwhelming here, but the whites and the krafts do help to tone it down a tad.

The lovely Cienna collection was one I fell in love with too. The different tones, and the general message running through it is one I feel relates well to my period of life. It's one of those which I can see myself turning to quite easily to finish off accents for pages, or even as a starting point. It is simply beautiful.

I was also gifted two lovely wood veneer sets: Key to My Heart, and Lots of Love. I've recently fallen for wood veneer, and these are both lovely selections. I'm just afraid I'll use them too quickly!

Finally, three stamp sets: A Bushel and a Peck, Always + Forever, and Cienna. I think this may be the push I need to get me into stamping, it's never before been something I've explored, but I look forward to doing some testing.

Thank you very much to all at Elle's Studio, I cannot even begin to describe how grateful I am. Everything I received is beautiful, and I will definitely be ordering from the shop in the future!

February Favourites

Continuing with my inspiration laid out in this post, here is my February favourites page. I stuck to using up some of my yellow, a task which I found challenging and interesting to try and document. This time I also wrote my favourites directly onto the background.

I'm not sure if I like this approach, it looks quite stark and bare. But it's all a process, and I can learn from what I like and don't like with my pages. So, I learnt this month that I prefer having a more intricate background paper for my monthly favourites. Just a little something to keep in mind.

Stole my Heart

This is my third and final layout from octopush student nationals! This one is different to the previous two, because I wanted the yellow to grab attention... so I used the brightest yellows I could find and matched it with black so they would contrast. It worked spectacularly. 

The photo isn't a fantastic one, but it's only the second one of Him and me, so I have to make the most of it. Neither of us really like having photos taken. This one though is special because of Ferdie, that little grey-ish green duck sat between us. This is York University's octopush mascot and he is adorable. But he really needs a bath. Again, it was nice that the team felt that they wanted to include me, even though I didn't play. Octopush is one of the things I miss most about being at York, the first of course being Him. It's hard being away, but it will make going back even more special.

Warpaint

Another page from Octopush Student Nationals, this time for the after party. York have this crazy tradition of dressing as bumblebees... no-one knows why... and they decided they wanted me to play along. Even though I didn't play... and I was wearing blue... cue face paint and yellow electrical tape...

I kind of liked using these yellow accents on this page. I never use yellow that much, it's not one of my favourites, at all, so it's nice to have a purpose to use them.I think using them with the white background helps tone them down a bit - but then the black does exactly the opposite! The background papers here were all from my stash, and, as you've probably figured out by now, in my book, that's always a good thing.

Student Nationals

Today as well as sharing a page, I'm going to share a few quick tips that I learnt from my first attempt at typed journalling.

The actual layout of this page is very simple. I made a photo collage for the bottom four images, and just had them printed together. I wanted to keep the rest of the page clean, because those five photos are so busy. These were from the Octopush Student Nationals at the end of February, and for anyone who doesn't know what octopush is, check this page. Trust me, it's fantastic. I couldn't play this year, as I was ill, but I was so proud that the York A team came fourth!

I then measured out the space I had on the plain yellow card beside the pictures. I subtracted a centimetre from either side, as I wanted a border. I translated this into a punlisher document, setting the text box to the same dimensions. For formatting, I chose to have the text stretched equally across the lines to keep the shape of the rectangle.

Once everything was typed and formatted to fit the box, I printed the page out. I used a paper trimmer to cut each line out evenly, and then a pair of scissors to cut the end and beginning if the time as close as possible.

Now comes the fiddly part: sticking them down. I found the best way to not get muddled is to try, desperately, to ALWAYS KEEP YOUR LINES IN ORDER. I spent a while trying to figure out which one's needed to go in which order because I, stupidly, overlooked that issue. 

Once that is done, I adhered mine in a few places with a glue stick, but any adhesive that can work on small strips of paper would work just as well.

You can see from this image that not all of the strips are evenly cut, note particularly the last line of the second from last paragraph: the 'to' very nearly got cut of due to my poor scissor skills, resulting in a slant... but it's okay. You can't tell as long as ou don't stare at it too much. Perhaps this can help you learn from my mistake - don't get distracted while using scissors!

I hope this helps to anyone else looking to start typing their scrapbook journalling!

Inspiration Realisation: 1

This is a segment that I've been thinking about for a long time. We are swamped by inspiration thanks to the wonderful powers of the internet: blogs, pinterest, instagram. With Pinterest particularly, I know that it can become very easy to hoard that inspiration, but never act on it. Who else here has several boards, with hundreds of pins, but you never seem to make anything?

I think we should change this: actually make what we said we wanted to.

I found this pin while I was looking for an idea for a friend who recently had her tonsils taken out, just a little something to cheer her up. I followed the link, which came out at an etsy store, but which wasn't selling any more. So I had a think This was a crochet project, but who's to say it couldn't be knitted?

So I gave it a try.

Mine I don't think is quite as cute, but you get the idea. I used a basic pattern for knitting mug hugs to do the base. In hindsight, I think it's possibly a bit too wide, but that's something to keep in mind for when I knit the pattern again. I knitted two tiny triangles, and my sister, bless her, crocheted a nice circle for the nose. I sewed all of these on, added two buttons for the eyes, and then I was done. It was fairly quick and simple, and it has an impact. She loved it, which is all that matters.

Nice to start actually making these projects that I saved!

Baking

One of the things I found myself doing a lot of in February was baking. I made Pancakes for Shrove Tuesday, and then a couple of tins of goodies for friends when I went to visit student nationals.

I quite like the simplicity of this page. I haven't written the journalling yet, but once I do, this page, despite it looking quite empty, will feel quite complete. There is no great need for embellishment, the pictures look yummy by themselves, and the richness of the colours helps add to that. I think some pages just want to be left be.

Do you ever find that? Or do you push through?

Buried

You can't actually tell, but I am buried under that pile of Winnie the Pooh's...

Welcome to my collection! I thought it was about tine that I documented my obsession small collection of yellow bears... I love them all. My sister decided that she wanted to bury me under them to try and cheer me up... I agreed, of course.

I had great fun making this page, The little 'Pooh' tags actually came from a sticker sheet specifically for Winnie the Pooh. Using it felt so good! My other embellishments were kept quite simple: both the picture and background were quite bold, so I kept it simply to some paper layering and gems. I created a border down the right hand side of the page by centring some yellow circle stickers into the white circles. It helps to add another pop of colour.

I think its good to document things you love.

January Favourites

And so we start on the 2015 Scrapbook pages! My January was a bit lacklustre (Ta, glandular fever) so I have very little to scrapbook from then. Instead, I decided to adapt something I found whilst a-googling (or possibly pinteresting... I don't know, I lose track!). Monthly favourites! I owe the idea completely to Lynette at Nettio Designs, so please go and take a look at her website. I'm just using the concept to a physical format, instead of her class which is for digital scrapbookers.

So, here is my first layout. I am in love with this mock fair-isle paper, and I was so scared about overpowering it. using it for something like this is perfect, as there's still plenty of white space to revel in that gorgeous pattern.

I cut thin strips of paper and wrote my favourites on them. They're in no particular order, but they fit together well. I've put a close up below if anyone is interested in what my monthly highlights were.

Thanks for stopping by, and thank you Lynette for sharing your wonderful idea to the Internet!

Scrapbook 2014: Complete

WARNING: Picture Heavy.

Happy National Scrapbooking Day 2015!!!

I thought I would collate all of my Scrapbook photos and posts for 2014 together for one master post. This is it. All laid out neatly in chronological order, too. Click on the captions to visit the original posts. I feel it's quite nice to see the development in my style, even over these few pages. 2014 will be special in my scrap history because it was, in essence, my first proper year. I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have.

Of course, I may go back and add extra pages, if I find certain pictures that I decide I want to give some attention to. If this does happen, I will update here too.

Now without further ado, here is my 2014 album!

Title Page

Converting to 12x12

Converting to 12x12

Converting to 12x12

Converting to 12x12

U6A

Leaver's Dinner

Blue Wedding

Holibobs

Mignonne's Birthday

Happy Rachel

Best Friends

Creative Outlet: Swing Dance

November and Frozen Yoghurt...

The Joys of a History Degree

First Picture

The Village Pub

Jingle Bells

Christmas at Hogwarts

Thank you!