Can we build it?

My DH went up to visit his family and spent most of the weekend struggling to put up a gazebo - the instructions were less than adequate and they had to take apart and rebuild three times!

The green stripey paper is from stash, and shows up much better in real life than in this photo, just couldn't seem to take a decent pic. I stamped and embossed some flourishes in the corners and doodled some faux stitching between them to form a frame. Then I added some crystal swirls and punched out some leaves to finish off the corner.

The bunting was cut on the robo and attached to a thin strip of cardstock, with some ribbon at the top ...... this took ages as the ribbon refused to lie flat for sticking and kept curling up! I had originally planned to leave it at that, but it looked a little plain, so I punched out diamonds and stars, cut the diamonds in half to make triangles and stuck all those down. Then I decided the doodled frame needed a little more emphasis so I punched out more diamonds in pale yellowy green and dark green, stuck all those on then realised that the dark blue would look much better than dark green - so punched out yet more diamonds and put them over the green ones.....

The title is robo-cut, in both greens, then layered one on top of the other to give a shadowed effect. Journalling is on safmat, stuck to the pale green and die cut with a deckled edge Nestie.

I always find it difficult to scrap events at which I wasn't present, but I am quite pleased with the way this has turned out!

Beside the Seaside

This is the DLO for last year's Cardinal Retreat, completed at this year's one! I managed to get some nice shots of Eastbourne pier and seafront as well as the gang and our cropping space.

Paper, cardstock and ric-rac are all from stash. The journalling is on safmat and the title is robo-cut, using fonts Cairo and Santa's Big Secret, well fonts are not just for Christmas you know......... LOL.

Surprise Party

Another LO completed at the CC retreat! These are pictures of our friend's surprise 40th birthday party - they had come over from America to see friends and family and Harvey had organised a party for Mel, we had had to bite our tongues when she had popped round for a visit a few days previously!

The paper is from Prima (Moulin Rouge?), it had an image at the side which I wanted to cover, hence the scalloped edge side border - it looks quite plain in the photo, but it is Swiss Dot cardstock and looks better in real life! I cut strips to make a frame and the title is robo-cut using the font Hawaiian Punk. A few die cut flourishes and safmat journalling, then it was done.

Over the Rainbow

This is another LO completed at the retreat. White space on this one - something which I don't usually do!

The paper is from stash, I don't even remember buying it, so goodness know how old it is :-) I actually was hunting through the stash looking for a blue patterned paper but none seemed to go with the photo well, then I had a lightbulb moment and went for white - looks much much better! I robo-cut the letters in two different fonts, Cairo and Albemarle Swash. The pearl swirls are made from ZVA flourishes, cut about a bit to fit round the letters. And that's it, though it took a while to put it all together just right!

Nice and simple :-)

Mighty Lemon Trees

This is DS1 holding the lemon tree he grew from a pip....... he has also grown an orange pip and next will be trying his hand at an olive stone .... my house will become a jungle....... LOL.

There are five different papers in here, all of them from old stash except the cream/red spot paper, which is fairly new and by Rayher. The ric-rac is from a RAK (Randon Act of Kindness)! I robo-cut the title and found four square brads for the corners - they were buried in a little box on my desk - really really must sort out my stuff!!!

Loot

I can't believe I haven't blogged for 5 weeks! Talk about real life getting in the way :-( Mind you that slice of real life did include a great holiday week in York and the fabulous Cardinal Colours retreat in Eastbourne last weekend. Great classes and wonderful to see old and new faces. Many thanks go to Jill and her team for organising such an amazing event! I completed 10 LO's - including Anita's wonderful canvas class.

This is the LO I completed for this month's Scrapology challenge - the theme is embossing, so the night before (and the morning of) the retreat I was stamping and embossing like mad so I could take enough motifs for this page with me! The photo is of everything I bought at Ally Pally in September last year and I was determined to use one of the bought items in the LO, so decided on the spirograph stamps (Maya Road).

The strip down the left side is punched using an EK Success punch, which was then stamped and embossed with a 12" border stamp. Then I stamped/embossed loads of the spirograph circles in gold, nutmeg and pearl gold on different cardstocks - ivory, black and bronze. Lastly I stamped/embossed a journalling block. Then I stuffed them all into my bag and set off hoping I had made enough!

I had the black embossed strip (Morrocan screen embossing folder - cuttlebug?) left over from another project - actually it had been a practice piece, but had come out too well to throw away! I also had some metal left over from one of my Ikea mirror projects, which had been embossed using a tiny mesh embossing folder and then alcohol inked - there was just enough to make a mat for the title. The spirograph images were punched out using scalloped and plain circles and layered up in twos and threes - well the original sketch had flowers on it .... and you *know* I don't do flowers LOL. Oh and I inked the ivory cardstock images with some chalk ink to match the background better, they were a bit bright.

The background paper is from Black Market Paper, the plain yellowy torn-edged paper is *I think* Basic Grey and the Harlequin paper was bought on my very first trip to the US in 2004, so I have no idea what it is! I am not really into tearing paper, in fact I cringed as I did it and Karen swore she heard the paper scream! But actually..... I rather like the way it has come out. The title is done with American Crafts Thickers.

It took a while to get everything positioned how I wanted it, then of course I had to disassemble to stick it all down! This is my favourite Scrapology page so far, I love it :-)