My Fifty Shades

At the recent Scrapstars Retreat one of the pre retreat challenges was a layout based on the hit book Fifty Shades of Grey. It could have 50 shades of the colour grey or none at all or be directly about the book or not at all. This is my entry, a layout about my lovely hubby Grumpy. Actually he would be more suited to a layout themed around the seven dwarves, Grumpy, Dopey, Sleepy...get the idea? I really struggled with a title then driving home from work one evening someone on the radio was reviewing a new play, could have been Full Monty musical or similar and said "more James May than Christian Grey" and I had my title. Don't think hubby was too impressed but when he gets rid of his model railway and teddy bears I might change the title (not)!

The Pink Layout

Today I had a snow day, although there wasn't actually any snow, but I had a day at home with nothing to do other than craft, yay! I finished off a couple of layouts including this very pink one, which is a scrap lift from a stunning layout by Louise Collins which she designed for the recent Scrapstars retreat but it couldn't be used as the papers were no longer available in the required amount. The papers are by Prima and I have to say if I had just been handed them without seeing Louise's layout I wouldn't have known what to do with them. The photo is of my daughter, as usual. She will very occasionally pose for photos and this one is from August 2011 when she needed a close up on a white background for her uni ID card.

Today layout

This is my finished layout from the second Scrapstars class by the amazing and very inspiring Louise Collins. I learnt so much from this class as we did some ink transfer and added texture with scrunched patterned paper and made all our own flowers from doilies and vellum. I added some dabs of acrylic paint because I bought a gorgeous "sandal" coloured dabber from Kate at Bellaboo, the retreat's on site shop, and liked the colour so much I was dabbing it everywhere, layouts, hands, clothes!!!! I really like all the techniques and I will be doing a similar layout soon but spinning it with the textured bit at the bottom and the blue bit at the top to give the illusion of sand and sky.

Adorable

This layout is from a class taught at the Scrapstars Retreat in Leeds earlier this month.  The class was taught by the very talented Louise Collins.  I have added a few extra embellishments and a bit of stamping.  I am not usually a painty kind of scrapper but I really loved making this layout and I will certainly be using more paint in my layouts in future.

Mother's Day 2013

This is the card I made for my mother-in-law for Mother's Day.  I went a bit mad with the glimmer paper and stickles, I'm sorry, I couldn't help it, they made me do it.  Stampin' Up! are giving away some packs of silver glimmer paper with qualifying orders and I have a few packs.  It comes in silver but it colours really well with a few squirts of coloured mist.  Here I've spritzed it with a bright pink mist and the heart and penant were cut from the silver paper but I gave them a spritz with a dark grey mist just to give it a stronger colour.  I also spritzed some white flowers to got at the top.  I've added stickles around the heart doily, had to, because I put glue around the edge of the doily and it lifted some of the pink from the glimmer paper underneath and leaked through the doily.  The stamp is from Lili of the Valley.

Getting All Owly

I was in a very owly mood today so I made an owl card for my brother's birthday and using some left over scraps of the papers I made two little female owly cards for my card box at work.  The stamps and papers are from the Leanne Creatief range.  I have a few of these owl stamps and I really love them.  I tend to stamp about a dozen of each, colour them in then tuck them away for when I need a topper for a special card or two.

Summer Silhouettes Gift Bags

It's  Scrapstars Retreat in two weeks time and Caroline asked me to create some gift bags to put the raffle prizes in  so I got out my new Stampin Up Summer Silhouettes stamp set and using embossing power  and a heat gun I got to work creating these two bags, complete with matching tags.  I really love them and dont want to hand them over.