Document 2012: April

These were my pages for April, made at my monthly crop last weekend:

The pages came together really easily this month, I had lots to scrap and talk about - not sure I'll have so much for May - have spent quite a bit of time crafting, which I do have some photos for - and getting ready for holiday - am not sure piles of clothes and washing will make for a very interesting month!

Shimelle Starting Point

Yay, I really like the starting points from Shimelle - I can normally get a LO together from them in an hour which for me is super quick scrapping. This week's is here if you want to play along.

This is my version of the starting point

The colours are a bit off in the photo, the combination of taking it in the evening and having the white screen of the monitor in there. I used a combination of 2 old sarah's cards kits and was inspired by a combo on design seeds, unfortunately I forgot to save that exact combo but it's a really great website.

And this was my finished LO, photographed this morning so the colours are better :)

This photo is from 2009 and I'd already scrapped our day trip to Longleat so I didn't need to include all the details here but I really liked the random snap, and the journalling just talks about the things we'd seen and why the boys really needed this drink!

Stuck?! May 1st Sketch

Stuck's lovely sketch for May 1st is here and I stash busted using some old papers from Echo Park, AC, Stamping Up and some MME embellies. It's also the first time I used blooms for ages, but if you can't put them on a wedding LO when can you...

I really liked the LO but still have more photos I wanted to include and lots of stories from the day, so I made an insert that will sit on top of this LO.

The journalling will go on the inside of the tab and I'll then attach it to the main LO with some tape. I really like this idea, inspired by Shimelle's Cover to Cover class, and making this LO will fill another gap in my 2010 album...

Sketchbook365 June Sketch

I really liked this month's sketch  from sketchbook365 and this is my take on it

It's made using EP's This & That charming PPs and I used my MM slice to cut the stars, hearts and number 3. This LO fills a gap in my 2010 album, I'd scrapped Owen's birthday cake but not his actual birthday, and I think this LO really fills that gap nicely.

Small things...

In this post I was having a bit of a whinge about the inaccessibility of my albums, they were stored on the top shelf in my craft room - a complete pain and quite dangerous if they all fell over every time you got one of them down (which they always did!)

My plan to sort this out is to get myself to Ikea and buy an expedit which will go in our dining room and be a lot easier for everyone. However we are off on hols quite soon and don't want to make the Ikea trip until we are back and I've been paid again. So I was getting a bit frustrated when the other evening I looked at the shelves and realised something really simple I could do to improve the situation - at least until I get to Ikea.

Do you want to see what I did?

I appreciate you may have to crane your neck in a sideways fashion! Can't get blogger to turn this photo round:( Anyway I swapped the albums with some books so they were on a lower shelf - so easy, took 5 minutes and has improved my scrappy world immensely...

Any yes small things do please small minds....

When my Mum went a bit crazy....

My Mum is normally a very sane sensible individual... so when she announced she was going to abseil off one of Reading's tallest buildings we were all ready to call the funny farm! Well she did it and made a lot of money for charity and I found the photos when going through my 2010 album looking for gaps (thank you Cover to Cover).

This is the LO I made

I used some really old papers and incorporated all my style elements - mini-alphas, a tab in one corner, 3 PPs, handwritten journalling and a date stamp. I also used this lovely sketch from Sarah's cards, which I think was absolutely perfect. The colours are a bit stronger than the photo makes them, but overall I am very happy with this LO. And I put it straight away in the 2010 album after taking the photo! :)

Creating continuity...

The latest Cover to Cover prompt is all about continuity and how we can make our albums flow. I really love it when I achieve this in an album and think my honeymoon album definitely has it, as I had very carefully selected all the PPs and embellies in advance to match, and told the story of our honeymoon from beginning to end. But how to create this continuity in my new chronological albums - the layouts in them have been completed over 5 years and my style and materials have varied a lot over that time.

However there are some things that I really like and go back to again and again so I've made a list of those to see if I can use them to create flow...

• At least 3 PPs
• Mini-alpha stickers
• A tab of some kind
• Hand written journalling
• Date stamp

So the date stamp I've got is new, the v cute Dear Lizzy Neopolitan roller stamp, but it will make LO sorting much easier if I can use it on every LO.

With these in mind I then got creating. Shimelle included a starting point in this post about this month's ten things. Did you spot it? Well my version of this starting point was this:

Using EP's Time and Seasons PPs, a range I loved and am now using up the last scraps of. The washi tape was from the Makery in Bath - will definitely be going back for some more at some point.

This was my final LO, including all the elements I listed above.

After I photographed it I merrily went to put it straight away in to my holiday 2011 album - uh oh - I hadn't sorted that album during the grand sort out, thinking it was fine - however while the LOs did all relate to our holidays last year (apart from one which I've now taken out), they were a complete mess, had mixed two holidays up, didn't tell the story... So I sorted them out, have found some gaps and thought while I was there to go through other LOs in that album, fine any made from the same PPs and add some elements to creat that flow.

This was the first I found, and the only thing I needed to added was the mini-alphas and a date stamp.

And this was the second, again I just added some mini-alphas and a date stamp.

 

I still have the rest of the LOs in the album to go back to, but this is a start and I'm already happier with it as a whole.