A new paper adventure......

There's a little shop in my home town called The Thrifty Thistle.... where I have rented a " crafter's shelf " and have been filling it up with hand folded gift boxes made from my scrapbooking stash.

The shop is full to bursting with local crafts, as well as renovated/painted furniture and is a real treat  to visit.

The shop website can be found  here.

I've had my shelf for 2 weeks now and have been busy making boxes, note pads, tags and framed pictures..it's been great !  My Stash is somewhat smaller now, but at least its all been put to "work".

I'm sure I'll catch up with some scrapbooking sooner or later , but for the time being I'm enjoying this little adventure , crafting as "Leonard and Lime".

Thanks for stopping by

Karen x 

A little bit of Mint Julep......

..Well actually its all Mint Julep by basic grey apart from the bazzill/washi and buttons! 

I absolutely love all the colours and florals in this collection so I bought the 6x6 pad, alpha stickers and sticker sheet from Papermaze and headed for the latest sketch from Scrap your story .

This is a photo of me in 1998, waiting for the imminent arrival of my second daughter. I just adore how Fay is standing next to me, she loved posing for  photos - and still does at 17! I also clearly remember wearing that denim pinafore dress ALL the time. All my (pregnant) friends had the same one, I seem to recall that not many high street shops actually stocked maternity wear , so there wasn't a lot of choice at the time .

Anyway, here's the layout and the sketch....

Thanks for stopping by 

Karen x

1st steps with Dad....

An appropriate layout for Fathers day.... 

This is one of the few colour photos I have of me as a baby.

 I was walking - but only just, so to protect my knees I had dungarees over my dress!  My mum only recently told me this tale, I honestly  thought I was simply wearing a huge nappy!!

The patterned papers and stickers are mostly "Everyday Ecclectic" and "Note to Self "by Echo Park.

 I love the retro viewmaster images and the vintage cameras are from some little cards by Sarah Hurley. 

The layout was made a while back for a feature on Dads in the scrapbook Magazine.

Thanks for stopping by

Karen x

Chillin'......

.......After a strenuous time at the Park in Rendlesham Forest, that's just what these 2 were doing :)

I've  had this photo in my pile of layouts "to-do" for ages and when I saw the Challenge on Scrapology I thought it was perfect , given the cargo nets reminded me of stitching......The theme for the challenge is H for Hand -stitched.. 

You can see the challenge and inspiration from the DT HERE.

I used a Pink Paisley Kit from Sarah's Cards Ltd, and some of my favourite Doodlebug letter stickers.
I tend to do a fair bit of Faux stitching on my layouts , so it was really nice to make it "real", I have tons of embroidery silks from my cross-stitch days so I have a feeling I'll do a few more now!

Thanks for stopping by,

Karen x

2 for the price of 1......

Slightly cryptic, however there are 2 challenges I wanted to create layouts for, but since the deadlines are looming I figured I would combine them into 1.

It's not something I've done before but as you can see the Scrap your story #13 challenge is to use mixed alphas, and the Sarah's Card's   sketch challenge for May is an A4 sketch !

The kraft borders are stickers by studio Calico, and the Islands of Adventures logo was cut from one of  the park maps we had when we visited Universal studios last Summer. 

It was such a hot day and it was so strange walking round a "snow " covered Hogsmead village ! ( I have some photos of that in my to-do pile :))   

 A total of 5 different fonts for the SYS challenge, Not including the Wizzardy spells on the background paper!...... and here's the sketch.

Thanks for stopping by

Karen x

3 more dogs......

 I was absolutely delighted to be invited to create a layout as a Guest Designer for " Scrap your story Challenge" blog.....It's sketch week....and since I have developed quite a liking for sketch challenges it was perfect for me !

Here is the sketch ......

 ....And here's what I did with it.......

 

The papers are from a totally gorgeous Maggie Holmes 6x6 Crate paper pad, and the letter stickers are Teensy Type by Doodlebug. Other than that, I used a green glaze pen, bazzil cardstock , a butterfly and circle punch.

Why not pop over to the BLOG to see the rest of the layouts by the fabulous resident Design Team,

and have a go yourself. There's a new and different challenge every week to kick start your creativity :)

The super cute dogs , Badger, Ivy and Len, are part of my sister's household in Oklahoma, see previous post for the back story. Ivy and Len were the most recent additions, having arrived from the wilderness last  summer and luckily for everyone they settled in very quickly. You can see Ivy soaking up the sun in her paddling pool!!

Thanks for stopping by

Karen x

Lester.....

My sister has a big heart, and luckily a big garden ! She and her husband have a  large collection of animals, most of which have found sanctuary at her house through one way or another :) . She has welcomed them with open arms and gives them all such perfect names......We visited last Summer and tried to get a photo of each and every one, not sure we managed it - some of the cats were a bit camera shy, but the dogs and pigs didn't seem to mind..too much !

This is the adorable Lester....

This layout was part of the "4 ways Challenge" in SBM recently,and uses the Kaisercraft
Secret Admirer paper and sticker collection. The chevrons at the top started off as strips of paper  which I folded over on itself twice.

Thanks for stopping by
Karen x

Buttons and butterflies...

That's what I had in mind for my layout for the " Scrap your Story" Blog Sketch challenge .

I saw a layout on pinterest  with butterflies which had been sewn on with bakers twine, made by Nicole Doiron .I thought it was such a pretty layout and the butterflies looked so lovely, I wanted to try the technique out myself.

I kept the sketch pretty much as it was designed , but squashed it all into my usual 8.5 x 11 layout.I loved the little embellishment clusters on the sketch and used the circle element as my photo. 

The papers were a mix that I had in my stash, but the washi tape and alpha letters were bought specially for the project from Papermaze..since I put the layout together at the April crop last Saturday. Its great having the shop open on crop days...for those essential bits and bobs!!

here's the sketch

Thanks for stopping by

Karen x

Woo Hoo ....

April 2 years ago was HOT ! I'm finding it hard to remember with this prolonged coldness.....

I took the girls to visit their friends on a farm....they spent ALL day jumping around in the haystacks . I'm only glad I wasn't there to see them - the stack was high up in the barn and looked scarily unstable to me ! Anyhow they all the best fun.

I used the current sketch #30 from the blog  sketch-n-scrap  

and only altered it slightly to use 3 photos instead of 4. 

I used Jillibean soup paper and hexagon stickers, American crafts Eric Thickers, Studio calico zig zag paper, and some washi tapes swapped with my scrappy friend Sadie. 

I used my poor neglected Crop-o-dile to punch the little holes down the sides.

Here's the sketch

This challenge is open till 30th April.

Thanks for stopping by

Karen x

A quick post....

THANK YOU.......to the lovely team at sketchbook365.

 No ,

I wasn't the winner of the March sketch challenge, but I was picked out as a Super Scrapper !!

Here's my badge and L/O.

Thanks for stopping by

Karen x