Kaiser Drawer Chest

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that you didn't eat too much, unlike me !!!
I spent both days with my family. On Christmas day we were all together at Sian's house....fairly noisy with five children around but we did have fun. I was also at Sian's on Boxing day while Carys & family went to the in-laws in Norfolk.

Following on from the previous post, this is the larger Kaiser Drawer Chest that I decorated, this time for Molly.
Like the previous one, I have used the Prima Fairy Belle collection. With a lush bling M alpha that I bought at the Merly Impressions crop last month. It wasn't really meant to be used on this chest LOL! so I need to get another one now to use on the LO that I had in mind when I bought it !!!!


The chests are here if you fancy having a go at one yourself.

and here are some more views........

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A pretty little chest !

Some time ago I bought this little Kaiser beyone the page chest from Merly Impressions with the intension of decorating it for either Emily or Molly to store their dance medals in.At the moment they are in an old shoe box in the bottom of DD's wardrobe! At last I have been moved to get it done. It will have to be Emily's though as Molly has too many medals to fit in ! I've got a larger one waiting in the wings to be finished before Christmas for her. I've used some Prima Fairly Belle product which suited the project well as the "fairies" are ballerinas LOL.

I'm off to put another coat of paint to the other chest and while that is drying I have a few Christmas presents to wrap ! Thanks for calling by and have a nice day.

Finished just in time !

When I showed my daughter the Advent Shadow Box that I had made for Sophie she loved it but went on to say quite diplomatically that Charlie would just have to share Jack's !!! Jack was bought a shop made one by his Aunt on his first Christmas and they've shared this for the last five years since Charlie was born. I felt really guilty when she mentioned it and decided to make Charlie one of his own. I quickly decided to E-mail Chrissy at Merly Impressions with an order for another box and some more paper & paint. She immediately came up with the goods - thank you Chrissy:) Time was a bit tight for getting it all done in time for tomorrow but I managed it and delivered it earlier this evening - phew! Quite different to Sophie's, a bit more traditional and distressed looking but I'm really pleased with it.

Here's a close up of the front where I added the other christmas tree from the Tim Holtz range and I also added some rub-ons that I had left over from last year to the edge of the opening.

Christmas is creeping up on us !!

Yes, it's creeping up very quickly and I can't believe that it's been over two months since I've posted anything on here.The truth is, I didn't have anything for you to see. I haven't done any scrapbooing since the last time I went to the Merly Crop With one thing and another I haven't had the time or if I'm really honest the inclination to scrap.My mojo went AWAL for a while. Last Saturday was a welcome return when I went to the Christmas crop where we had lovely eats ( they never disappoint) good company and a fab shop to drool over and to spend, something I have no difficulty in carrying out LOL. Chrissy had on display a beautifully decorated beyond the page shadow advent box that I just couldn't resist. I've virtually lifted Chrissy's exactly using the same Turtle Dove collection of papers together with the delightful Tim Holtz christmas tree I'm so pleased with how this has turned out. Now all I have to do is to find 25 little bits to fill it so I can give it to Sophie to start opening on Saturday.

It's not that clear in the photo but the Father Christmas at the back is decoupaged in three layers which makes him stand out and give the background a bit of depth, far more effective in real life than what the photo shows.

These are the two layouts that we made with the kit that was featured on Saturday. Gorgeous designs as usual from Chrissy.

It's a tradition at my daughter's house that Daddy reads the story of "Twas the night before Christmas" to the boys before they go to bed on Christmas eve so I thought I would record that memory for them.

Thanks for popping by and I'll be back a little sooner next time :)

Crop Layouts.

I went to Merly Impressions crop on Saturday. Super day as usual with a fab kit together with instructions to make two LO's designed by Chrissy. not to mention the yummy cakes that we are always supplied with.All in all a lovely day. I thought I would share the two classes that I made. Papers used are the Kaisercrafts Miss Match that can be found here

Love the fact that these two layouts are from the same range of papers but are so totally different. Shows how versatile a pack of these papers can be. Lovely and sunny here today but with a very cold wind so I've decided that clearing up in the garden ready for the winter can wait !!!! Thanks for visiting, bye for now :)

Seems a long time ago now !

Don't you think this year has gone very quickly? quicker than normal I think or is it must be me getting old to think that LOL ! It won't be long until Christmas and I'm still waiting for summer to arrive ! Anyhow I took loads of photos at the street party I went to in June for the Diamond Jubilee and this is only the second layout I've done. First one I didn't like, but I'm pleased to say I was quite happy how this one turned out. After the instant dislike to the Papermania Jubilee Paper I went on a retail therapy outing one night over the net to Sarah's Cards and bought some Ruby Rocket Vintedge papers and a few stickers. The monthly challenge over atMerley Impressions Blog this month is to use just paper - no cardstock, just paper. So using two sheets of paper, one for cutting the cogs and clocks out and one for the background, a few stickers, mini alphas and thickers for the title and voila ! another page done and three photos less to scrap from that pile LOL !

Anyone know why blogger doesn't post with paragraphs in ? It's driving me batty, not noticed it before. There are paragraphs in my post but obviously blogger doesn't like them !!! Hope you've had a nice week-end and thanks for poping by :)

Really bad blogger !!!

Yes, that is me. I can't believe that it's been two months since I've done any blogging. I really don't know where the time has gone. In all honesty I haven't really done any scrapbooking either. So I had nothing to blog about !!!! I went to the Merly Impressions crop in July and put together two layouts that was from the kit at the crop, came home with a bit of inspiration and put together another three layouts and that's it I'm afraid. I've been gardening,sorted some unwanted clothing for the charity shop, looking after children, feeling sorry for myself as both girls went on holiday at the same time and left me on my own - not that's not really nice is it ?( ha ha )In some ways it was nice and peaceful without the phone calls of " Mum, are you doing anything, can you blah blah blah" !! not to mention being glued to the TV because of the Olympics. Went to my God-daughters wedding the Saturday before bank holiday. Then last week I went up to Wales for a week to visit my sister. Weather wasn't too bad but a bit chilly, fairly sunny with a couple of days when it was raining but had a lovely week catching up with her and her family. So I'm back now :) Sian went to Florida for three weeks with a list of punches !!! She managed to get all four punch around the page Martha Stewart ones that was on the list for buy one and get another with 50% off. So I had all four of them for just under £60 - now that's what I call a bargain! I sent her back to get some more after she phoned and told me about the deal but the offer had finished. She still managed to get two border punches and a 3 in 1 hydragea flower one for me though and they were still cheaper than they are over here. So I've now got lots of punches to use when I get going again. In the meantime here are the two layouts that were done with the kit from the crop. Chrissy's layouts are right up my street every time with all the lovely fussy cutting and the gorgeous Kaisercraft papers.

and these are the three that I did over that week-end. I'm positive I used a sketch from somewhere for the one of Sophie "So Happy" but for the life of me I can't remember from where. So I apologize that I haven't given it credit.

This one is the same photo as the page from the crop one but I wanted to make two layouts, one each for Jack & Charlie's albums.

Thanks for calling in and I apologize that there hasn't been anything to share if you've popped in over the last few weeks, hopefully I'll get back into the groove from now on.

Websters Pages again !

I decided to make another LO with some more of the Websters that was in the Decemebr kit from Sarah's Cards. Seems a better idea than putting it back in the box for another day don't you think? My son in law took Sian to London for her birthday in March - just him and her, left the boys at his parents and Sophie came here overnight. He'd booked a room at the Savoy no less, and a visit to the Ice Bar in the late afternoon before they went to the theatre - someone is very spoilt I say !!!!! They give you these lovely hooded velvet capes to wear while you're in there. Mind you you're not in there that long - 40 minutes slots I think, otherwise you would freeze LOL.Everything in there is made of ice, the bar, tables, all of it! I downloaded the two smaller photos from their website and cut round the green frame, bottom right and slipped the photos underneath.Did some fussy cutting for the bottom left corner from one of the other papers and some more cutting from another sheet to get the top right bit in to balance the page out.

I'm much happier with this page than the one of Charlie yesterday. I still don't like it and I agree with the posts that says it's more than likely not my style in addition to the fact that the more I look at that Papermania Portobello Road Paper, the more I dislike it.It really isn't my type of paper at all.Waste of money that was then LOL !!! Thanks for all your comments they are very much appreciated.I've got lots of photos from the street Jubilee party so I think I'd better sort some other papers out for the boys pages. The girls photos are sorted as the kit from My Creative Scrapbook had the Pink Paislee London Market in it, no problem there it's just the boys!

Time for another challenge..........

but I don't like what I've come up with LOL I made this layout for the June challenge at My Creative Sketches but I'm not very keen on it but I'm not sure why! I'm not going to submit it yet as I might get round to making another one before the closing date, we'll see !

I don't think I've shared this page either, made with Websters Pages from the "All About Me" range that was a Sarah's Crads Kit some months ago,December 2011 I think !

Hello Summer

The June challenge for " and now for something different" by Shimelle has now been posted on UKS. I like the idea of the three 6x4 photos and it fitted the bill nicely for these photos of Sophie taken in the garden last week. It was a bit of a lost cause trying to get her to keep her sun hat on though LOL.I put it on, she took it off, I put it on, she took it off !! I'm sure most of you have been there at sometime or another LOL

Fun in the Garden !

We haven't had much of a summer here so far have we? Sophie so enjoyed playing out in the garden when she was here last week. She doesn't get a chance to normally, it seems to always rain here on a Tuesday ! I've based this layout on the " Now for something different" challenge that is running on UKS each month hosted by Shimelle. This is the first one I've managed to do and was a bit late getting round to it - it was last months ! I liked the principal of the four small photos is a kind of film strip/photo booth type of thing. I've had a fairly busy couple of weeks with one thing or another so haven't done any scrapping except this page. Even this was done with bits left over from other pages. I need to remedy that pretty soon though as I have tons of photos to be getting on with when time allows and a mountain of stash!!

June Sketch Challenge

Ha ha this looks as if I'm pimping Sarah's Cards blog posting two posts in a row about their sketch challenge. I was thrilled at the week-end to learn that I won last months challenge. Now I have a nice voucher to have a little spend, can't be bad can it? Anyhow I really liked the sketch that was up for this month and I've been dying to cut up some of the Websters to use the window frame from one of the papers.This sketch was just the job for using it to frame Sophie's photo that I took the other day when her Mum had attempted to put her hair up in bunches. I have a suspicion, that as she grows older, her hair will quite often be in bunches to keep it under control as it's turning out to be really curly at the back - just like her Mum! Oh and for the ones that follow my blog - Sophie has at last got her 1st tooth - could be near a record, she's nearly 18 months !! I did some intricate cutting of the flowers from another 12 x 12 to frame up one side backed by a punched trellis from one of Martha Stewart border punches. I also cut the little house from another piece - this is starting to sound like a jigsaw puzzle LOL.It wasn't far from one by the time I had finished with all my cut out bits! Why not pop over to Sarah's Cards blog and have a little go, you have plenty of time. Here's the sketch I had to work with: and here's what I came up with:

May challenge at Sarah's Cards

Pop over to Sarah's Cards blog and have a go at the May sketch challenge. This is what I came up with. The papers are from a previous kit from Sarah's - Pebbles Fresh Goods which was the January 2012 kit. I knew if I kept the papers long enough that the right photo would come along LOL.

I'm off now to do some gardening before it gets too hot as the forcast says it's going to be 26 deg here later today !!! Hope it's as warm where you are.

Family

The lovely Prima metal vintage " Family" trinket included in the kit from My Creative Scrapbooking together with the lovely Websters die cut paper fitted this photo so well.Using the most beautiful lace trim from the kit proved so hard - I just wanted to keep it to stroke but I was brave and let it go LOL. I overlaid the strip of green rose trim which also came in the kit and added a Zva Creative flourish from stash. The photo is of Carys Nick & Emily taken on Sian's wedding day. Emily was two and was the only bridesmaid or princess as she called herself at the time!!

First layout from my new kit !

As you can imagine I couldn't wait to cut into this new kit I received the other day from My Creative Scrapbooking but there was also a small part of me that just wanted to sit there to look and stroke it all LOL. I finally did take the plunge though and this is what I came up with. This kit is so generous with the amount of The Websters pattern paper you get and if you're careful where you cut I'll have a quite few pages out of it when I've finished. With carefully gutting the inside of the pink backing paper I was able to mat my photo's with the cut outs. I stamped a flourish to bring a little more interest to the matting and distressed and inked the edges.I carefully cut round the fairy frame and tucked the matted photo under one corner.I cut some of the flower vines from another sheet and used these together with a couple of Prima Parisa flowers and some tiny roses.Both lots of flowers were included in the kit.I used two punches, the cherish punch around the page for the pink and an EK success one for the "fan" shaped used down the right side of the photo and as a tuck in in the top right corner.Another strip was used down the right bottom corner just to bring some colour into this part of the page. I also stamped and punched a few butterflies to finish the page off. I adore this photo of Sophie that I took last month on one of my impromtu photo shoots that she has to put up with - I'm sure by now that she must say to herself " Oh no, she's got that black thing in her hand again" LOL Here's the finished page and a couple of close ups.

Not much scrapbooking today though as I need to pop into town to get Jack's birthday present, he will be 8 on Sunday - time flies!

Challenge over at Merly Impressions.

The May challenge has just been posted on the the Merly Impressions Blog so I had a little play with the sketch this month. I've turned the sketch round as I wanted to use a portrait photo.The papers are Sweet Nothing by Kaisercraft. .

I've used a poem that I found on the internet a long while ago for my journalling. I printed this on some Safmat and adhered it to the frame that is also from the Sweet Nothings range.

I've done a bit of sewing on this page too, round the photo to hold the lace frame in place and also to secure the strips of paper that are under the photo

Do pop over to the blog and have a go at the sketch - there's a really generous prize up for grabs !!!

I think she likes a bit of colour !!!!

Emily, my granddaughter had her 11th birthday last month and wanted desperately to spend some of her money on a pair of new convers. She didn't want what everyone else had though! She found out that you could "design your own" on the on-line website - she was so excited at the prospect of getting her own unique coloured pair. No one would miss the fact that she likes bright colours with what she came up with and you certainly don't miss her when she's walking down the street wearing them. LOL She made me take a photograph of them when they arrived so I thought it would be a good idea to preserve the memory of these unique footwear. The papers I've used are just a couple of odd bits left over from various other pages with some navy bazzill as a background, some eyelets ( not used any for ages) and some ribbon as laces and a few punched stars.

I had a lovely surprise this morning - postman brought me my 1st sub kit( The Limited Edition) from My Creative Scapbooking based in USA. It's full of lush Websters papers and Prima flowers - I'm in heaven !!!!! So off now to put my thinking cap on to see what I can make with 15 sheets of paper - yes that's how many there was in the box !!

Still working with Prima

Another page made with the Prima Birdsong range ! It's such a beautiful range that I'm well and truly hooked LOL. I didn't have any alphas that matched this page though so out came the white ones together with the Promarkers which sorted that out - Pumpkin is just the right colour ! I had the same problem with the flowers so I did the same with those. You've really got to love the versatility of the Promarkers at times ! I also did a bit of sewing on this page, not a lot, just the top right and bottom left filler strips to balance the page out. This is Sophie on one of Nanny's impromptu photo shoots that she has to partake in on the odd Tuesday when she comes round to be looked after. I'm not too obsessed though - I don't do it EVERY week !!!!

I would imagine that there's a lot of people scrapping out there today. If you are one of them - Happy National Scrapbooking Day, hope you have a good one.

Cherished !

Yes she is very much cherished. This is Emily quite a few years ago now. I really need to check the photo details to get the exact date. I'm sure you've guessed by now that I'm in love with this Prima Birdsong range LOL! Lots of cutting out again and layering. I've also layered some of the elements on pop dots/Pinflair silicone glue to give them a bit of dimension.

a couple of close ups

Thanks for visiting my blog today !

Prima Songbird Layout

Having mentioned yesterday that I was off to make another page with this beautiful paper, here's what I spent most of yesterday evening doing. The die cut out paper that's on the background is in fact a Kaisercraft product. I bought this at a crop a couple of months ago and had no idea what I was going to do with it once I got home!!! Anyhow it came in very handy for this page - everything has a purpose at sometime or another if you keep it long enough LOL. I die cut, punched or use my cricut to make all the flowers from the Birdsong paper. I also stamped a frame & birdcage from some Kaisercraft stamps. You'll no doubt see some more of this paper on future pages as it's really beautiful and photos don't really do it justice. I bought a few sheets of the 12 x 12 but in addition to that, I also bought an A4 pad that is ideal to cut the elements out and use as embellishments. They're slightly bigger obviously, than the smaller 6 x 6 pads so in one way they're more versatile to use.The main benefit of this is that you can guarantee that you like both sides of the 12 x 12 and I would be reluctant to cut it up and it saves buying two sheets of each !It's also ideal for the smaller pieces that you may need to matt your photos.

I've just received some more Prima in the post today, the Prima Fairy Belle Collection which didn't disappoint. Again it's beautiful and it's got ballerinas on it!!! I'm planning on making Molly an A4 album of her festival photos over the last two years. After the sunshine yesterday, it's raining again today. I'm getting seriously fed up of this weather now !!!! Hope it improves soon for all of us.

My Creative Sketch Challenge

The weather has been dreadful here over the week-end - surely we have enough rain now to not continue with the hose pipe ban ? There was only one thing for it - scrap!! Last month at the retreat I saw the Prima Birdsong that Rachael was working on and I fell in love with all of it. I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to activate my membership for the My Creative Kits in time to receive the April kit that these Prima papers were in, so I had to go and buy some. I decided to us some of them for the April Challenge Here's the Sketch which is fab with all the layering, right up my street !

and this is what I came up with. Click on the photo to get a clearer view.

I've got another very similar photo of Molly doing this dance so I'm off now to make a second page with this beautiful paper.

Challenge 2 with Shimelle

The second challenge that was on Shimelle's blog last week-end was to use three different manufacturers papers on your page. Now I don't normally scrap with paper from different manufacturers on one page so this was quite a challenge for me. I normally like my patterned papers to be all matching/from the same range.The only time I go looking for anything else is if I just wanted a small filler for punched flowers or a journalling square or something similar. I spend enough time with a photo in one hand, delving through my papers, which are mostly kept within the " range" without having to go delving from one manufacturer to the other picking papers ! Taking the easy way out I hear you say LOL ! So this time, still with my photo in one hand whilst looking through my " don't belong anywhere" pile of papers I started searching. In actual fact it wasn't as time consuming as I thought it would be and soon came up with three manufacturers that would fit the bill and would match the photo I was scrapping.Better still, they all came from my partly used pile. That was good, I've use some of my bits up ! The three manufacturers are My Minds Eye Fine & Dandy for the scalloped border down the bottom, Lily Bee Memorandum for the turquoise blue that is under the photo and a couple of very old sheets of 6 x 6 by Sassafas Sweet Marmalade that I cut up to make the sun and to decorate the journal block on the left of the page. So all in all I was pretty pleased with myself and happy with the end result even if it is a very unusual style for me.My pages are usually more heavily embellished than this ! This is probably the last page I'll have time to upload before the deadline tonight but I will go through the challenges one by one at a later day.

Challenge Five - Inspiration points

Another page for the week-end crop Shimelle had over the week-end. You must have noticed by now that I'm jumping about a little in the order of these challenges.
When number 5 came up my immediate thought was "I have just the photo for this challenge" based purely from the inspiration of using a wide landscape photo.
This photo was taken last year at one of the Dance competitions that both my granddaughters attended. It was taken while they were dancing on stage so consequently printing it in a run of the mill size was going to make the " little people" quite small. It would also take away the perpective of the size of the stage in my opinion.The title Litlle People was because they did a song & dance based on the song from the musical Les Miserable.
So the main inspiration that I gained from this layout, featured from the challenge by Wilna Furstenberg was the size of the photo together with leaving the " top" part of the page as " white space" so that the photo would prominently feature on the layout.

Here's the page that was featured for the challenge :

and this is the one I came up with :

I'm not sure how much of these challenges I will manage to do before the closing date for uploading, which is this week-end but however many that will be I have really enjoyed the ones I've done so far and will try and attempt a few more if time will allow before Sunday.

Scrap with Yellow, Grey and one other colour.

The challenges have been coming thick & fast over at Shimelle's blog during the whole week-end. I've not been able to keep up with them all and I've not done 2 and 3 but jumped to number 4. There's 16 of them now !!! The main reason for this was that I had just the paper that would fullfill this challenge - to use yellow and grey with one other colour. What better paper could anyone have than the recently released Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu - totally yellow & grey which I bought last month at the Sarah's Cards Retreat!
I very rarely scrap in yellow, not sure why as I do like it.
I chose a teal/turqoise/ duck egg whatever you like to call it as my " one other colour" a particular favourite colour of mine !
I've done a bit of distressing, a bit of stamping here and there, inked a few edges and added the obligatory butterflies LOL I even found some very very old skelaton leaves from my stash. I have no idea how many years I've had them LOL
Here's what I finally came up with.

I printed a little poem about Granddaughters that I found on the internet ages ago as my journalling and stamped a decorative frame around it before I cut it out.

I've got some sewing to do now - Jack's name tapes in his cricket kit, ready for going back to school tomorrow. Can't have him going to school with no name tapes on his kit, you'd never see it again!! He has a habit of forgetting that what he's just taken off in the changing room needs to be put back in his kit bag before he leaves and not left there LOL
Not to worry though I can still do a few more of the challenges during the week as you have until the end of the week to upload them to the blog.