Hand Crafted Memories

I realised I still haven't finished posting all of the projects from Scrapstars , I'm still taking them out and looking at them, each one was very inspirational and has led to a crafting frenzy, I have so many projects on the go but none are finished. I have just discovered Kathy Orta and her fabulous tutorials, the last three days have been dedicated to making a lovely album in an attache case. It still has quite a bit to go before it is finished. Here is one of the finished projects from Scrapstars, this was a mini album n album made of canvases. I loved these papers.

Today we have had a lovely sunny day, about time. Its still cold but at least we are getting rid of the snow. I have spent most of the day working on a project I recently bought instructions for. It has taken most of the day and that is just to build the basic box with drawers. I still have to cover and decorate the whole thing, but I feel very productive.  I'm hoping that the Easter cards I posted to my relatives will arrive tomorrow, in time to wish them a Happy Easter. I was completely inspired by a post I saw on Pinterest and loved them so much I had to make them.

That's the title of the challenge this week over on Winter Wonderland . I used an image that always makes me think that she is waiting for Christmas. I'm snowed in today, along with half the country, so I am forced to deal with my increasing stack of crafting jobs to finish. Hopefully all this snow will disappear over night, I'm supposed to be teaching my next class at the Craft Box . Its the second half of a project and I think my ladies are keen to finish it. So today I need to make sure I have their April project finished  so I can collect my supplies.

Another layout from the fabulous Scrapstars retreat, this one was taught by Louise Collins and boy was it messy. I love trying new techniques and this one featured a plastic bag, some newspaper and some Glimmer Mists and that was just to create the background!. The thing I loved was making the vellum and lace doily flowers, so simple but very effective. I've even made them again to feature on another project. So far that is unfinished but when I get an extra day in each week I'm sure I'll finish them all off. Don't laugh at the photo, I'm not sure which one I'll be using but I didn't want to post the page without one. My goodness that hair cut from the 80's really does look like a helmet!

The challenge this week over at Winter Wonderland is to make a Christmas card with a bird on it. Well how about 4? I love this stamp, I've had it so long and each year when I do a clear out to make room for new stamps, this one wins a place on the 'to stay' pile.

I can't believe its two weeks since I was at Scrapstars, time is really flying by. I love looking at my projects that I finished last week, but now I need to get my thinking cap on and come up with some ideas of my own for my ladies. Today I have a project with a difference. The fabulous Emma taught us how to make a great satchel using the lovely new sweet notes products from Websters Pages . We not only made the satchel but we made a little purse to go inside and inside the purse was a mini book for photos.    

There is a new trend coming through for decorated pegs, I loved some of the ones released by Prima but they were a little plain for me. At the Scrapstars retreat Caroline issued everybody with the challenge to dress up a peg. As a teacher I couldn't win a prize but I could definitely play along. Here is Peggy, it so made me laugh when I made her this peg decorating is very addictive so here are another three that I made the one on the right is my favourite. I just need to put some magnets on the back to make them fridge magnets to hold memo's or photos.

This week I have decided to start making my Christmas cards, I know, I know but if I make one a week then by the time it comes around I'll be ready. It also means that on my busy weekends I don't have to stress if I don't get one made. The perfect place for inspiration is the Winter Wonderland Challenge Blog, this week the challenge is to take inspiration from a picture. Well my inspiration was the dark sky, the falling snow and of course the snowman. So this is card 1 ready for this year.

At last today we have a decent bit of light, so I('ve been snapping away at my layouts. Hopefully this sunshine will keep the predicted snow away, I've used up all my snow days so am hoping that I can get to work tomorrow. This layout is the one I taught at Scrapstars.  I knew I wanted to do a travel themed page, then Caroline challenged me to make it interactive, Oh my! I picked several choices of paper and this was my first choice, it's Wayfarer by Bazzil .  and judging by the OOOHs when the ladies opened their packages I was on to a winner.I showed everybody the page and the pulled out the interactive part and there was just the right amount of Oooh's that made me happy. I was a bit worried as there is a lot of precise cutting to do, but everybody managed perfectly. We managed to mostly finish it in the allotted 2 hours, but it was lovely to see everybody move into the cropping room and carry on with the page. Every body's page looked very different but the only

The light at the moment is terrible for taking photos of my craft projects, so it is stopping play at the moment. I can't believe its a week since we were all crafting away the the Scrapstars retreat. As usual it was an excellent weekend packed with fabulous classes and inspirational ideas. I had booked  this week off work so that I could finish everything off and I am so pleased with all my work. Unfortunately with the terrible light, even during the day I am struggling to get some decent pictures to post. Before the retreat we were issued with a couple of challenges, the first was to create a name badge using weather as the inspiration. Well at the time there was only one sort of weather around, SNOW. Rumour has it that there may be some more this weekends BRRR! So here was my name badge  and the second challenge was to create an 8 x 8 layout based on the bestseller 50 Shades of Grey. Well I've never red the book, you could certainly see the ladies that had. There were so