Make Your Journalling the Heart of your Scrapbook Page

This week's challenge on Shimelle's blog was to make your journalling the central focus of your scrapbooking page. I'm pretty good about including the story on my scrapbook pages, but this was taking it to another level! Shimelle linked to this post about hiding your journalling in plain sight, and I loved the way the clear acetate was layered over the handwritten background.

Having drawn inspiration from this, I had a flick through the photos I had printed and found that I had a few of Nik Kershaw from when we went to see him live, back in September 2014. I'd watched this video from MercyTiara just a couple of days earlier, so the idea of using the setlist as my background journalling immediately came to mind, so out came the watercolours to create a background using brush script.

This was only my second attempt at getting the full setlist on the sheet of 12x12 card - I'd always planned to trim the edges slightly to mount it, just so that it was a bit stronger in case it was pulled out of the page protector, but I'm really pleased with the way it fitted.

I'd recently bought the Color Chaos transparency from Bella Blvd - I bought a couple of colours - this green and a turquoise. The turquoise blended in too much but I thought the pickle green gave a good contrast. The star paper is from the Becky Higgins Project Life Honey edition and the other embellishments, including the cute cassettes are from the Bella Blvd Max collection.

Put a Book in Your Scrapbook

Yet another perfectly timed challenge on Shimelle's blog this week as we've just been to see stage adaptation of one of my favourite books, The 39 Steps.

Almost all of the elements on this layout are from the Basic Grey Serenade collection from 2012. I didn't have all of this collection, but had quite a few sheets and the sticker sheet, and I've made loads of layouts with them - there are just a few scraps left for cards now! The dark red sheet is from the Basic Grey Oliver collection 6x6 paper pad, and there's a bit of the Heidi Swapp gold colour shine mist thrown in for good measure.

I thought that these papers really suited the feeling of the book and play which is set just before the First World War. Adding the dark red pulled them all together with the photo.

Scrapbook with Numbers

I really thought that my inspiration for challenges had come to a halt - but then, this week, I had a birthday. Not a big one, but it made me think about how we used to count how old we were when we were kids - the number of candles on the cake, or the number of cards we received so, a quick selfie later, and I had a couple of photos to scrapbook this week's challenge on Shimelle's blog.

The background paper, from the original Shimelle collection by American Crafts, was much busier than I would normally use, so I found some more of the glittery vellum which softened quite a bit of it. I layered the photos with some of the papers from the Simple Stories I Am collection 6 x 6 paper pad, and used some of the stickers from the co-ordinating sticker sheet.

Scrapbook with Vellum

I started this layout this week before the challenge had been posted on Shimelle's blog, but I'd already thought about using pieces of sparkly vellum before I saw that that's exactly what we were challenged to do!

The background paper is 'Pow' from Crate Paper's Boys Rule collection from 2013. The red and dark brown striped paper I used for matting is even older - it's 'Flannel Pyjamas' from Basic Grey's Jovial collection from 2010. The journalling card is from the MAMBI Here & Now Journalling cards and I really like the small pops of kraft cardstock.

The vellum is actually pretty minimal on this layout - I've used it as layering circles with the silver hearts. I've had the glitter vellum for a long time and have no idea where it originally came from, but I definitely love using it.

Sketch Inspiration

Have you ever had days where you want to create, but you are just completely uninspired? That's how I felt when I sat down with the sketch for this week's challenge on Shimelle's blog.

Last weekend we cleared out a lot of my craft room, moved out an old bookcase, which was struggling to cope with the weight of my scrapbooks, and a sideboard which never really offered the internal storage space I was looking for, and replaced them with new Kallax units from Ikea. Some of the stash we cleared out is still taking up space in my husband's office, waiting for me to sort it eiher in to its new location or decide that it really has to go but, for the most part, my room is much nicer and I was really looking forward to sitting and creating in it - and it just didn't happen!

My first problem with the sketch is that it suggests just one photo. I knew I could use two if I felt the need but, at heart, I'm very much a lots-of-photos scrapbooker and, rummaging through my stack of printed photos, I was struggling to find anything the sketch would work with, so I abandoned it and went and did something else!

Having slept on it for a couple of days, I had the start of a layout in my head, and knew which photo I wanted to use, but was still struggling with the circles, so I cut some strips of paper from the Shimelle True Stories collection, stuck them on a background from the Bella Blvd Color Chaos collection, added a photo, and then started experimenting with stamps and embossing to make circular embellishments - none of which really worked! I thought about embossing wood veneer to make them silver but didn't have anything which would make them glittery like the paper - and then I had a flash of inspiration - silver stickles! And it worked brilliantly!

From being such a struggle, I'm really pleased with the finished layout. I also love the puffy alphas from Freckled Fawn - they're very forgiving when you decide to move them!

Oh, and yes, that is Richard Gere in the photo!