A first

I have completed my first crochet hat. Lily is now the proud owner of a new hat. It is by no means perfect, but DD is very pleased with it, so much so that she wants one.

There will be no stopping me now.

Not going to plan

I have come to the conclusion that my Dad is a very wise man. We have spent a lot of time together this week while my Mum was in hospital. One of his pieces of wisdom this week, is not to make plans. At the time I disagreed with this because I am the Mum of a very active/social seven year old and life needs to be planned, that is until said seven year old gets sick.

I had planned to go to the Eclectic Keepsakes Crop on Saturday, but germs decided to invade my house on Friday. My DD got sick, so my plans for this weekend went out the window, add in some snow and all hell has broken loose.

So what is a girl to do while DD is snuggled on the sofa dozing in between various Disney programs. Tidy her craft room of course. Now I would show you a before picture, but I am to embarrassed, let's just say that you couldn't see the floor or any of the work surface in there. It's a job that has been needing doing for a while, but if I have a spare minute I don't want to be tidying, I want to be crafting.

So here is my room in all it's glory, looking at this it still looks a little cluttered, but trust me this is a huge improvement, it was so bad that DD didn't think that it could be done.

I now have photographic evidence that I do actually have a carpet in there and for once it does not have hundreds of little white squares all over it.

I can now actually see the work surface.

My current Just One Sketch layout, I will hopefully be able to finish it this week. I still can't believe that I only have my current project out. Normally there is the leftovers from several layouts, all the punches that I own and whatever else I have used since my last quick tidy.

I have even rearranged the bookshelves, I now have empty boxes (shock horror), I have labelled my pizza boxes and I even put some magazines out to be recycled.

So how long did this take me, pretty much all day in between caring for the sickies. Did I miss the fab ladies at Eclectic Keepsakes, of course. Am I glad that I have done it, yes, there is always next months crop. Also on another plus side I found my crochet hook in all that mess, so I have begun to start to teach myself to crochet, again.

So my Dad will be pleased to know that this week, I have no plans. DD on the other hand is a whole different matter.

Something to look forward too.

It is the last day of the month, so we know what that means....... crop at the weekend. Woo hoo!
I managed to persuade my lovely Sister Liz to come to crop, she still has lots to do on her wedding album. I am really looking forward to this weekend.

So this month has been a very scrapbook productive month for me, I have at least ten completed Christmas pages to put in my new album. I love that I have made the album and then managed to fill it.

I am still behind on the Just One Sketch class, I have one last rotation to do, then the mirror images, oh and also the monochrome. Even though I am behind, I am enjoying the challenge that the class is providing. I hope that I might be able to squeeze a layout in today. The weather is horrible outside, so staying inside seems like a good option.

I had two boxes of new stash arrive last week, which is really exciting. Lots of shops are having sales to make way for the new stock that is being shown at CHA as I type. There is so much lovely new stuff being shown on blogs. I wonder how long it will be before I can get my hands on some of it.

So crop, new stash and great company to look forward too, roll on the weekend.

It's Friday!!!

Hooray it is Friday!

This week I have worked my way through two more layouts using my sketch. After reading the Just One Sketch Blog I am a little behind, as they have not only covered rotation of the sketch but also mirror image and now going monochrome. Oh well, I have next week to try and catch up.

Below is my layout using my first rotation. I am not happy with it, I love the colours, but it feels like it is lacking something, just not sure what.

Next layout is using the second rotation. This layout I am much happier with, the colours don't work as well on screen, the dots make it look fuzzy, but looking at the actual layout it is much clearer. I can even tolerate the wonky stamping.

I tried using stickers for the title, but they didn't look right. I really like how the title feels the space.

I used two Sizzix dies for the embellishments, a paint splat and Tim Holtz's rosette.

Hope my friend Laurie takes note that I have inked the edges, she is big on this and I get polite reminders at crop to do it :) So two new layouts to add to my 100 target, doing quite well this month, let's hope that I can keep it up.

Birthday celebrations this weekend, my lovely husband and my Fabulous Mum both have birthdays to celebrate, so a good opportunity for photos. Also means that I will have some use for the lovely boxes full of new stash that arrived this week. Yes I know that I am meant to be being good, but some of it was to good a bargain not to buy and also I still had some Christmas money to use.

Mondays

Who likes Mondays? I must admit I am not keen, DH off to work, DD back to school, housework for me. Well usually housework for me, but this week I decided to put the housework off for another day. Why? Well to scrapbook of course!

I was reading ATDML Blog when up appeared Karen's Sketch for the Just One Sketch Class. ATDML are doing a give away and are offering a £10 voucher to spend in their store, if you submit a layout using Karen's sketch & it gets picked out of the hat. Well I love Karen's classes at crop, so what a great way to avoid doing housework on a monday morning.

Here's my take on Karen's sketch, the photo of the layout is not great as the weather is pretty horrible outside.

I have attempted a couple of close up shots to show some more detail to make up for the bad lighting. You can't really see the title in the top photo.

I love these flowers, I think that this is my fourth layout this month with them on. They are so simple to do, just cut out some circles, ink the edges, scrunch and then attach. Simple!

I used Kaisercraft bubblegum hills papers, which are great for a girly layout.

I raided my ribbon stash too, I would have liked to of used orange ribbon, but I couldn't find the right colour orange.

Right I am off to do some housework and hope that I might get to have a go at my Just One Sketch homework. Hope the weather improves x

Taking a look at how I do things.

The New Year brings new adventures and I do like to try something new, as it is too easy to get stuck in a rut. Just before Christmas I was reading Karen's Blog and she had mentioned a class that was starting January. The class is called Just One Sketch and the proceeds are going to the Girl Guide Association and seeing as my DD has joined the brownies this year I thought that I would have a go.

Miss Smith is the lady running the class and in her first prompt she asked us to take a look at our most recent layouts and pick out our favourites and look at what design features most on those layouts. For me this is jumping in at the deep end, we have skirted around the issue of what type of scrapper I am at crop.

I am a tidy, safe scrapper or if we are being honest, I am an anal scrapper. I have lots of of white backgrounds, clean lines, punches for edges, use stamps occasionally and if I am really being brave I might add the odd bit of glimmer mist or flourish. I am not huge on loads of embellishments and I use other people's sketches all the time. I love classes at crop as we tend to do all the things that I am not brave enough to do on my own. I am a scrap wimp! Maybe my New Years resolution this year should of been, BE BRAVER!

So we that all being said, next prompt was to design my own sketch. As I have already said, I use other people's sketches all the time. So how do I start this, well by using somebody else's sketch of course. My friend Laurie is well ahead on the homework front had has designed her sketch. So in true Becca fashion I used Laurie's sketch.

Well what can I say, I liked the sketch, it had room for a white background, clean lines and not too many embellishments, perfect. It also meant that for another day I had put off designing my own sketch.

OK, so what happened to the trying new things and being brave, all put on hold because I wasn't happy with my hand drawn sketches. I saw the chance for a new app and I took it. I downloaded iDraw for the iPad. So another evening was spent learning how to use the app. I am really pleased with this app as I can see that I will be using it a lot in the future.

And here is my sketch, basic I know, but I am really pleased with myself as it took me out of my comfort zone and I have had to learn something new. I think that it has potential.

Here's my finished layout, clean lines, lots of white background, punched boarder. I know I can work it on it.

So far this class has taught me to have a look at what I am producing, I know that my layouts are not to everybody's taste but they work for me, for the moment. Next step rotating the sketch.

 Maybe this year will be the year for the new bolder scrapper Becca. We will just have to wait and see :)

Just a quickie

I have finished my Christmas album, just need to decorate the front :) It was a little more fiddlely than I thought, but I am pleased with the results. I used two layers of chipboard for the album covers, I think for my next album I will try & find something else as chipboard is expensive and not that easy to find in big sheets. The pizza boxes that new stash arrives in might be the way to go.

My homework for today is to get started on my Just One Sketch homework. I need to look at my past layouts and workout what type of scrapper I am. I'll let you know how that goes.