Hand Crafted Memories

Today I am having a snow day, although it turns out I didn't need it. With all the coverage of snow in the news and my extreme fear of driving in it I decided to book one of the days I had in reserve and not even risk battling with the snow that was predicted. Here we are afternoon and there was nothing to worry about. I may have to eat my words later this evening.  With an extra day all  for me I have had a good clean round and am now free for a crating weekend. Today has given me the chance to catch up with a few crafty projects, I know I've been missing for a while but that doesn't mean I haven't done anything, it means I haven't been able to take a decent photo to post.  At the beginning of November UK Scrappers had a cybercrop, usually I make a pile of pages based on the classes but this time I didn't like too many of them. In fact I made only one page. I loved the idea of this patch work, it was a fabulous way of using up scraps of paper. Also in Nov...

There's a cybercrop going on over at A Trip Down Memory Lane , as usual I need to get the photos printed, but I've madeto get the first two pages ready.  One thing I can post is the first challenge, which was to Tag it. Make something with a tag or tags as the theme. I made this little card, I've had this stamp sitting on my counter for a few months since I bought it. Today it finally got inked.  I have a spa day planned for today but I intend to take part in as many of the classes as I can fit in. I love cybercrops for stash busting, and I am happy to report that I have bought nothing I will ber using everything from my stash. Excuse me a moment while I polish my halo.

I recently made a page for the UK Scrappers cybercrop, where I journaled about not being able to get the Christmas lists from my nephews. The page was here , and shortly after I managed to get the lists. They've kicked around my craft room since December because I didn't know what to do with them. Today I came across the remnants of the papers from the page and decided to use them a try and make the original layout into a double page spread. I think it has worked, I hope so.

Sometimes you make a page and are just not sure about it. I recently made a page on a Cybercrop and although I loved the technique, it just didn't feel right. I kept going back to it and couldn't bring myself to putting it into my scrap book. This is the page I loved the idea of making my own background using masks, but wasn't too sure about the inked colours of pink and blue. I thought I'd use my glimmer mists to have another go and am so pleased with the results here I remember when I first started scrapbooking reading an article, the author had said you should always give yourself permission not to like everything you create. I also know that there is never such a thing as a mistake. I learnt a technique but took it a bit further until I came up with something I like better.

I've been missing for a little while, I've been working away and seem to have been busy trying to catch up. I haven't had any time for crafting. Hopefully this week things will slow down enough for me to do the stuff I want to do. On the recent Cybercrop over at UK Scrappers the tutors made cards along with their pages, I made a few of them while the scraps were out. Here is a nice simple one.

I didn't mean to, but I posted last week saying that was the last page from the cybercrop. I then realised I hadn't shown this one. Oooops! I liked the concept of this page but you try getting two nearly teenagers to write a list to Santa! I thought this page captured this stage of their life perfectly. I love that it's not obviously Christmassy. A little plea, I recently made this hinge lidded box, but can I find the instructions anywhere. No! I know they were on somebodies blog and I think it was a recipe box.If anybody knows can you give me a nod.

Something a bit different on this months UK Scrappers Cybercrop was the card challenge. Each class designer also produced a card, they also earned points. As the cards could be made from the 'leftovers' from the scrapbook pages and everything was already out, I made a few of them. This was made from the leftovers from Di's Christmas Village workshop.

This is the last page that I made on the recent UK Scrappers Cybercrop. I love this colour combination and really like the little embellishments that I made. I really like pages that have white space on them. This design abd the embillishments are ones I can see being used on other projects.

One of the classes on last weeks Cybercrop was to make a snow village scene. I should have known when I saw the tutor what would be involved. Di always does the most stunning classes, that are not a page. This one took me four hours, so most pf last Sundays crafting. I do love it though. It will look lovely on my coffee table. Each tutor also made a card so keep coming back for some of the cards I made.

Another page from the Cybercrop, this was a bonus class centred on journalling. I love the papers and idea of this page and can see me doing something like this again.

What is wrong with traffic? The roads I need to get to work have been completely cleared of snow but it still took me nearly 2 hours to drive a 40 minute journey. That was each way, adding a phenomenal 4 hours onto my working day. It didn't help that I was already tired from all the crafting this weekend. Here is the next page I made. I took the photo from another page that I'd made at a class and never really did like the original page, I immediately thought of this when I saw the instructions.I'm loving it now. Also Kath is looking for photos of snow in the garden well here's mine Yes that's a whopping 2 feet on the table, notice my hanging baskets? here they are close up  They have caused much amusement to everybody that has seen them.

The UK Scrappers Cybercrop is great, I have made some lovely pages, usually there is something I'm not to keen on but this time, so far, I'm really happy with everything. Each class has a technique that earns you points towards a teams total. This class was all about creating the background using masks. Here it is.

The UK Scrappers Cybercrop continues today and I can't believe how well I'm doing at keeping up. This mornings 8am class was scheduled to take an hour, what am I doing that it takes almost three. Again once I saw the page I changed my mind about what I wanted to do. I had made a layout way back when I first started scrapbooking that I didn't like, I didn't think it showed the pictures to their best. I took it to pieces and used Claire's class to rework it. Here is my page

I've been in a bit of a crafting ditch for a while now. I wanted to scrap but none of my photos seemed to speak to me. That was until tonight, over on UK Scrappers they are having a Cybercrop and the first class was enough to inspire me. This was called learning to ski designed by Maria Needles. I had my papers all picked out and ready to go, but when I saw the layout and instructions I knew which pictures I wanted to use, so the papers were swapped as well. The class was supposed to be 1 hour, but I spent an hour on the stitching alone, I also swapped out the felt flowers for felt berries. I'm really happy with the finished page.   This year each designer is making a card as well,so I thought in for a penny in for a pound and here's my card.

I spent yesterday on the garden and today I'm paying for it, the garden looks lovely but I am aching. I'm declaring today is going to be a crafting day. Finally I've caught up with my Document 2010 project. Here are the May pages, I didn't do very much this month until the last couple of weeks, when I seemed to do quite a bit. I didn't have enough photos so a bit of creativity was called for. The photo of the Icelandic volcano and the polling station sign are from t'internet. The lunch date page was inspired by the first scrap page here . This is a blog I love looking at, I just love Keisha's style . Don't forget to check out my slide show of this project at the bottom of this page.

I loved making this page so much on the recent Cybercrop that when my brother gave me three pictures recently, I knew exactly how I wanted to layout the page. Its amazing how different a page can look just by using different papers.  I swapped the lace for twine to make it a bit more 'manly'. I think this will be a layout I'll return to many times.  

Yesterday I scheduled a post and goodness knows what happened, it posted OK but the photos didn't appear. I didn't check until lunch time but by the time I came home to fix it the pictures were there. Is it something I did or a blogger glitch? I'm having another go and we'll have to see if it happens again.  The next stop in the Monopoly Cybercrop journey is Property Ladder. This fabulous class was led by DiO .It was scheduled to last an hour and half. I took about four and half! It was really worth it though. The little house has sides that are held in place with magnet, when the sides are pulled off it opens a mini album of house photos. Gorgeous and so clever.

I've won a prize for my Oxford Street picture from las weeks Cybercrop. I can't believe it! I've won a caddy of my choice from Creations by Rod , so I've chosen the large stickles caddy . How brilliant is that! I left you all in Pall Mall, so now lets battle the Bank Holiday traffic and move over to Old Kent Road. This class was led by TJ and encouraged us to scrap using a photo of our first house. Luckily I still had the brochure I used to sell the house, so I scanned the photos and used those. The images were a bit grainy but it added to the 'old' house effect. All the info about the house is from the brochure. The class included instructions for hidden photos and journalling. After the class I added the trees and little houses because I felt the page looked a little bit dark and forboding. It was a happy house for me so I wanted to make it brighter. Here was my entry for this class.   Hop over to Craftwork Cards blog, the favourite five flavours from the Des...

Our cybercrop  journey around the monopoly board continues on the way we might as well stop off briefly at Pall Mall. This lovely class saw us all making some home decor with this lovely heart shaped wreath. The class was led by Angela from Angel Crafts .Playing with chipboard is one of my most favourite things so this class was right up my street. It also helped me use up some of those scraps of paper that one day might be used for something. I know you know what I mean! It looks much larger on the photo than it really is, it's about 7-8 inches tall. This makes it big enough to be noticed but small enough for it to be delicate and not in your face. Don't forget the Craftwork Cards Card Candy challenge , final day for entries is tommorrow. The top 5 flayours that we as a design team choosewill be announced on 3rd May for you to start voting for your favourite flavour.

Carrying on our journey around the Monopoly board, we arrived at The Strand, this class was lead by Sarah Youde . I didn't dawn on me until much later that we used strands of thread to do the stitching. I really enjoyed the class and especially the little details. These are failry recent photos that were taken when my brother and his boys all had a go at tossing pancakes. Fortunatly nobody ended up with one on their head, but this one looked like it was going in that direction it went so high!