Beach babes....

Well, well, well, guess who finally got around to finishing off a layout.  Yep that's right I finally have finished off a UFO project. 

A few months back when these photos were taken I knew that I had to get them scrapped right away.  This is my daughter and the daughter of one of my best friends, we both knew each other as kids and our mums were friends in high school so these girls are third generation friends, very special really.




The layout....I am really loving the look of framing or matting the whole layout and one of the best ways to use up pattern paper that you no longer have a use for or isn't quite your style is to use it as a frame.  Pretty sure I would have trouble using a red watercolour with floral print but as a mat, perfect.

Another great trick to stretch your stash is to use those project life cards up by using them for layering.  I only used two sheets of pattern paper in behind the photo one was that gorgeous feather Sassafraslass and some very vintage KI Memories, the others however were MAMBI pocket pages.  I am not a project lifer but I still have quite a few packs of them around so this is a great way to use them up.

I am in love with these small Prima alphas and those Pink Paislee Luxe Arrows.  I have used the arrows a few times lately and find the colour combination though rather neutral works really well with a variety of different colour combinations.

Finally those extra photos that you don't have room for on your scrap pages or maybe don't want to include on your layout........put them into a pocket page or project life style album insert.

I don't do double page spreads but sometimes I would like to add in a few more photos.  This is a great compromise to that as you don't have to scrapbook them but they are included with the whole story that you are telling. 

Morning Coffee, Purple Lips....

How much fun I had making this layout.....
This was a real pleasure to make and a real lesson in make do and use what is already in your stash.

 Messy and sticky and drippy and painty and fun, lots of fun.
And Purple, how I have a hard time working with purple but this was a breeze.

All of the pattern paper is off cuts and pocket page cards on this layout, I was so inspired from the Love this city layout that I decided to get messy again and I loved the idea of actually using up and cutting into all those scraps I keep.

The purple water coloured bits behind the photo are just watered down acrylic paint mixed into three different shades of purple and the stencil that I used with texture paste was just a piece of scrap cardstock punched with a hole punch and then thrown away when I was finished.  

The misted droplet bits....just leftover from the painted section and I made a splatter ink in grey to go along too. 

How awesome is that Studio Calico font in the alphas...I am in awe of these ones.

It amazes me that most of the time I am wanting all the new stuff and I sometimes get bothered by the fact that I don't get to buy all the scrappy things I would like to have and then I can make a layout that is so different from my usual style and get so creative with nothing but what I already have and a bit of creativity....mind boggling stuff that.

Long lost layouts....part two

Part two, another couple of layouts that have skipped getting photographed.
I am not the photographer in the house and nor does editing photos appeal to me in the whole scheme of things so I will just use that as my excuse shall I.

These layouts are both from the same day when my brother in law and his girlfriend came over and stayed with us, so we took them out on a bit of a tiki tour as we call it and showed them some of our city.

I decided to try a different approach with this one as most of my layouts are layered and I went with a blocked design instead, I really liked the way it turned out but the only thing that frustrated me was that I still could not get anything straight.  I have no idea how I always muck my measurements up but even with my fancy cutterpillar pro I still get slightly off lines.

Again, Thickers love.....I adore this style.  The other alphas are from Prima and those gorgeous blue enamel dot things, well they are a million years old and are from a company called cloud nine which was owned by Fiskars, lucky I have tons of them as I use them all the time.  

Mixed and layered goodness.  This is a real mix of the old and new, the heart is actually two pieces, a fiskars stamp and a handcut heart stamped with a stampin up stamp, a Kaisercraft diecut, Lil Davis design chipboard heart and a echo park sticker.
Also how amazing is that chevron pattern paper, will be a sad old day in my house when that one runs out.

   
Please excuse the wonky photo angle....
Paint and ink and splattery stuff, it was nice to get all the messy stuff and have a play around.
This is a super, super plain and simple layout but again these were photos that I didn't want to take the focus away from, they are what makes this layout and everything else needs to compliment them. 

I didn't use any pattern paper on this layout just cardstock and some MAMBI (me and my big ideas) Pocket Pages, I bought them with the full intentions of doing project life but it is not for me and this is a great way to get rid of some of those cards.

CITY....would you believe that I have had those sticker for possibly the better part of 8 to ten years and they could very well be the very sheet of alphas that I ever bought.  All these years and I held onto them in the hopes that I would a use for them and what do you know.....perfect.  This goes way back in time to the days when alphas were not all that common, we didn't use chipboard and Thickers were not even a thing, yep that old.  

Long lost layouts....part one

Well it has been a while since my last post here but never fear I have been doing some scrapbooking here and there I just have been a bit slack getting them posted up, so slack in fact these two quite possibly were startedsometime last year....yep, sigh.

These are both from out first camping trip away of which we have had many adventures since but I really want to have an album dedicated to all of our little and big trips away.

 This is a pretty simple layout which makes it all the more frustrating considering I went back and forth with it for months, in saying that though this a photo that doesn't need to be over embellished or dressed up, simple is best.  

Those Thickers.......I love them, great slim line size and the colour goes with so much.

Now for those stars..... Not wood, nope just kraft cardstock, a star punch double layered and glued.  I would love to have  some of those Studio Calico wooden shapes  that everyone seems to use but at the time of making this layout they were super hard to find in Australia and they were damn expensive so I made do with a much cheaper alternative, will so so this again.

 

This layout was also one that drove me insane trying to get it to work.  It looks 100% different to what I had originally envisioned and I just could not get any of the layers straight.  Again nice and simple and also sticking to a certain colour palette.

 

I used quite a few pieces from the Echo Park mini kit The Great Outdoors and from one of their first collections A Walk In The Park, I love how easy you can mix and match within the lines the release.