love a crop day....

so yesterday was crop day.... the one day a month where I am surrounded by people as crazy as I am... 

Ladies who love paper like I do, who oooh and ahhh over pretty things and sparkly stuff!!

I love it :)

I took my first set of class kits along, they went ok...... I have a few left if anybody wants one?? they cost £6 and I've titled it summer in autumn as they are bright summer colours with lots of layers and enough space for whichever photos you want to scrap.

message me if you are interested x

anyways, I managed to do a couple of my own pages yesterday, its great to be able to share my time helping others who are less confident with their scrapping abilities (even when they have no need to be) but I also love having the time to do my own stuff too.... its win win situation for me :)

I completed 2 pages both for Carole's challenge and i have managed to link them too my LOAD challenges too so that was a bonus for me... so currently i am up to date, except I haven't done todays page yet, but theres still time lol.

So here is the first page:

the next in line for Carole's challenge... she gave me a CARD! it had a pretty frilly heart on it and was done in lovely pastel colours, it was very girly and pretty (sooo not me) and i had instructions to use pastel colours on mine, I was allowed to leave out the frills, thankfully!

please see the original here

I loved the stacked heart, I had some A4 paper packs which I haven't looked at in years but I decided to use these today to layer up... I then chose a patterned 12x12 that i thought I would NEVER use and trimmed that down before mounting it on kraft. 

then I found the photo.... it looked a bit bulky and straight as it was so I chose to use my heart edger straight onto the photo, I think it works well :)

Then I tied in my LOAD challenge which was to add a cluster on the page.... I did this in the top section, which started with the scalloped circle and grew as I found more pieces that I wanted to add on.... im not sure if the white space is too much or if it needs anything else, but its done!

This second page that I completed was another based on Carole's Saturday challenge for me, 

find it here

As always with challenges i pick out the bits that appeal to me and make it work with my style of scrapping.... this was particularly difficult for me as I've done misted backgrounds before and its looked horrendous and ended up in the bin.... so this made it tie nicely in with the missed LOAd challenge i didn't do from day 11..... this was to revisit something that you were rubbish at and try again... I guess I had to!

As you can see it went wrong AGAIN!

I used a Dylusions mask to make the rough diamond shapes in the middle, but I remembered to cover the top and the right hand side, but completely forgot to cover up the left... hence the green edge to my page.... I would normally have thrown it in the bin, but instead decided i would keep it and make it work... I chose to add another stencil on the top and instead of spraying this part I rubbed through some black Stayz on ink to reinforce the pattern on the edge, I hope it makes it look like the green was there on purpose, had i not have told you otherwise :)

Once again (weirdly) I chose my photograph after I had done anything else so I think I was super lucky to have this pic of elsie that works perfectly with the green, and with the black zebra like edging , I then sifted through my stash to find bits to add on.... again its quite simple but what would be the point in all the misting if I covered it all up???

TIP OF THE DAY

I was asked at crop how I add embellishments on.... which oddly is something I seem to struggle with myself! or maybe I'm over it?!?!?!

My solution to this.... when I am looking for things to add on to make a cluster, or to add some interest to a page I always follow these steps:

1: go through my embellishment bag and pull out everything in a coordinating colour to my page.

2: apply some to the page, add in clusters to work out what works where... you never know unless you try, so try it all!

3: take away the stuff that really doesn't work, theres no point adding it on just for adding it on sake, you can save it for another project!

4: stick down what works for you, add in some extra words, I love this... do as much as you feel happy with :)

If you refer back to the first page of Elsie sleeping you will see I have a bottle cap, a bow and a butterfly, none of these things really go together if you think about it, but they all fit well within the layout itself.

Always remember that nothing you do in scrapbooking is wrong! if you like it then its right.... personal preference has a lot to do with scrapbooks, something I love you might hate, and something I hate you might fall in love with, you will never make everyone happy with what you do so be sure to make the person that counts happy.... and that is yourself!

Thanks for dropping in today.... hope to see you soon xxxxx