Scrap Club - Four Pages in One Day!

... must be a record (for Lizzie!)

Sunday was Scrap Club day.  As my title says, I managed 4 pages, which is pretty good going for me.  I tend to be slow and dreamy when scrapping, so it's not often that I manage more than 3 pages. 

I had a couple of details to finish, so I did that this afternoon, while the Gas engineer was overhauling the heating!

I used an adaptation of Shimelle's "Stash Diving" technique.  For Christmas I received a rather lovely and very thick pad of scrap papers, from my lovely Niece.  It is called "Lost and Found" by My Minds Eye.  There are a number of colourways and lots of designs, all co-ordinating beautifully.

I chose papers from three "sets", to go with a number of photos I wanted to scrap.  Then I cut pieces/strips of the papers and arranged them to make good backgrounds for my pages, using extras to mount the photos and create some embellishments. 

I have ended up with two single and one double layout; and I'm really pleased with them!  While I won't use this technique every time, it's certainly a handy starting point for creating some good pages with co-ordinating papers.

Here they are:

"Location Location Location"

The two photos are of our very favourite place, Wells-Next-the-Sea, in Norfolk.  As the journalling says, we'd love to live there, if funds and logistics would allow it.  We can't so we have to settle for frequent holiday visits. 

For those who are not familiar with "Kirsty and Phil", the title is borrowed from a popular British tv programme, where two property finders help people to locate their perfect homes. 

I cut little hearts from some scraps of the patterned papers, then used one of my small lino stamps, to make two prints, which I cut with a scalloped punch.  One was printed with a soft turquoise ink, the other with a much brighter shade, so I layered them, with the bright one raised on foam sticky-pads.

* * *

"Play Your Happy Music"

James loves his guitar - possibly more than he loves Sherlock!  He plays it every day and composes his own music.  His tunes are always "happy" and I love to hear him play.  It makes me smile! 

Recently I had a "proud mummy moment", when he played in a local fund-raising concert, at the church in a nearby village.  His friend, A,  got the concert started and his mum helped to organise it.  They did a fantastic job, arranging for the local middle school to bring their choir to sing and for local amateur and professional musicians to play for us.  A and another friend, M, have a band together; James joined them, with his guitar, as they sang / played two very nice songs.  James also had his own "spot", playing "Romance" by John Brunning, plus a tune he had composed himself, which he called "Spanish Armada" - it really sounds very Spanish and is a good, stirring piece, which he plays very well.  The concert raised a good bit of money - over £700 - which was split between the church fund and a charity nominated by A & his family.  We were all very proud of our boys!

The photo on this layout isn't from the concert, but it is James practicing.  We weren't allowed to take photos during the concert, however I know that A's mum did take one of James - I must ask her for a copy of it!

* * *

"Oh for a Book - and a Shady Nook"

Little E. loves to read her story books.  Keri-Anne took these wonderful photos of her reading and drawing. I think they are so lovely and just had to make a layout with them.  It ended up being a double-page layout, as I didn't want to separate them. 

I chose the large letters to emphasise the "Oh" and "Book", as I wanted to have a good "stand-out" title, but obviously couldn't make all words equally large.  This worked really well, with the two "speech marks" and the little pink letters for the rest of the quote.  I wrote the name and dates in grey pen, underneath the quote.  I used my new heart border punch to make some little trims for the title boxes, then cut larger hearts and some butterflies, to embellish little corners of the photos etc.  The cut-out hearts from the edging punch made great "confetti" to decorate the journalling box.  I haven't written any journalling - I think I will ask Keri-Anne to help me with that.

The photo isn't very good - in fact, none of the photos are good, as the light was very poor this afternoon.  You'll just have to believe that these pages look much nicer "in real life"!

* * *

My other Project this weekend, was to have another go at tidying and organising my Studio.  I didn't get it all done - there is still a lot to do - but I made some progress:

I put the folding table under the window.  It had been cluttering up the middle of the room, in the way of the white desk and shelves.  Now the room feels enormous! 

It's hard to see, but there is now an extra shelf at the bottom of the unit.  I had a big stack of paper on the bottom shelf, which was too difficult to get into.  Whenever I needed something, I had to lift out all the paper, so I could get at what I wanted; I had cleared the second shelf from the bottom (the one that's visible, without much on it now) and put half the paper storage on that.  However, the shelf has a big space above it, which wasn't being used.  We have added an "in-between" shelf, so my paper can all be stored on two shelves, but I now have the tall space back, to use for boxes etc.  Still need to sort it out, but I'll get there soon! 

I did tidy my desk and table, but the mess crept back onto them very speedily - especially when I got lots of stuff out, to get ready for Scrap Club!

* * *

The other thing I did on Saturday afternoon:

"Midsummer", by Mariann Johansen-Ellis - a lino reduction print.

I've had this print, which I bought from Mariann, since June 2010. 

It had been languishing in a folder, shamefully neglected, along with all my other prints. 

I finally got it framed up and mounted on the wall, above my white desk (spot the reflections)!  

And I was fed-up with having all the lovely art prints I'd collected, sitting in a folder, waiting for me to save up for frames and mounts.  So, I cut some pieces of white and black card, then mounted them with invisible photo-corners (so I didn't damage them).  Then I attached them all to the wall behind my desk.  I think they look fabulous!

On the left are three wonderful photographs, by my very talented niece, Keri-Anne Pink. 

There are prints here by four artists. 

Top left: Three Cat Lino Prints, Lori Dean-Dyment; Below: "Dandelions", Nina Moscrip (was Clough); 

Bottom Left and also the other bird prints along the bottom row: Amanda Colville;

Top of the middle section - the deep blue owl print - "Night Flight", Celia Hart. 

To the right, next to my poster: "Old Books" reduction lino print, Jennifer Bass; 

details of two prints by John W. Golden. 

The other four prints?  Well, they are my own work and I thought I really should put them up on my own wall!  They are "Reflection" - a three-colour lino reduction print; "Spanish Lemons" - a four-colour lino reduction; the central one, below the clock, is a drypoint etching, "Lace Birds", which I did on my printmaking course at Knuston.  At the top right is a collograph print, which I also did at Knuston; it's not fabulous, but it's not awful either and I like it, so there it is!!

And that is my new Art Wall, that I have been threatening to make for about two years!

So, I think I achieved something this weekend.  Quite pleased with myself!