Why, exactly?

do I find myself taking pictures of eyelets? Seven eyelets to be precise. Well, there's a competition on Scrapbook Express called "12 days in December" Each day an item gets added to be used on a layout. Bit of a mystery tour, but fun so far.

A scrappy good time!

This weekend I actually got a bit of scrapping done. (At the cost of studying, I shall have to make that up!) I had some pictures from last week to scrap, when my boys were performing in their school's Old Time Music Hall production. The youngest was part of a dramatic recital of the poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" (had the opening lines, very scary), and was a sailor dancing the hornpipe. The eldest was Master of Ceremonies for one performance, and for the other he did a magic act and sang a solo "Any old iron". They were both brilliant, and I felt compelled to scrap some of the photos.

I also made some cards from scraps of Lime Rickey papers, and altered a little box which is part of a leaving gift for the lovely Deputy Head at the school I work at, who is leaving us to become a Headteacher herself. I plan to fill the box with chocolates to see her through those first few days! So, that's today's picture - box by Papermania, papers by Chatterbox, as is the felt sticker. The eyelet quote is a very old one from Making Memories, and some flowers layered with a gem brad at centre. I used Colorbox fluid chalk ink on the box edges, and sealed the whole lot up with Modge Podge.

And here's the whole thing

This is the whole of the layout that features my leaves. I had a lot of fun and spent quite a bit of time on this one, done for the Scrapbook Express November "Count your Blessings" contest, and it was obviously worthwhile because it was nominated as "Creation of the Week" and I won the contest too - which was a lovely surprise! What was especially nice is that it was done completely from old stash - not a new purchase in sight.

Experiments with leaves

I was doing a layout in Autumn colours, and felt the need to crack out the Sizzix dies. I cut a variety of leaf shapes from some Imaginisce papers. I applied some Distress Ink lightly on the surface, sprayed with Coffee Glimmer Mist and sprinkled a little gold embossing powder on top to which I then applied heat. This had the satisfactory result of drying all the inks and curling up the leaves very slightly to make them even better. Stuck to the layout with foam pads, I'm very pleased with the way they turned out.

Nearly December!

Wow, I can't believe that it's nearly the end of the year. Only three weeks and school breaks up for two whole weeks - yay! I'm really looking forward to getting through the next three super-busy weeks and having a bit of a break. I would really like to fit in a bit more scrapping too -though I have done lots of cards, a couple of layouts and a mini book in the last three weeks.

The mini book was for a competition at Scrapbook Express, but I ran out of time. I finished it, though, and it reminded me just how much fun minis can be to do. It's a bit of a mixed media thing, in that I made the covers from chipboard and the pages from cardstock, but I did slip in a couple of printed acetate pages which are really quite cute. One of the cardstock pages is made from a longer strip folded in half, so that it is actually a pocket. To secure the bottom of the pocket I punched holes with my WRMK Big Bite and threaded ribbon through it. The design of the album is very simple, using papers from a recent Bo Bunny release, and the whole thing is bound thanks to my Bind It All - a very welcome Christmas present last year.

Meeting Mickey

This picture is from Disney Paris last year. I love the opportunity to go with really strong colours, and Disney always gives you that! The foam letters at the bottom came from a pad of alphabets in different colours for kids - makes a nice change to get a good, usable bargain.

That's my boy!

I love this BG paper collection, but only bought the 6x6 pad. With a bit of careful matching of patterns, you can't even see the join at the bottom!

My son was so proud to win the trophy for effort earlier this year - he works really hard at his karate but does find it a bit hard sometimes to keep up with the big kids - so this was a real reward!