Life's a Beach - done!

It's been a busy week.  The fire service that I work for, along with the 7 others in Scotland are joining together to become the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service on 1 April 2013.  This is a huge undertaking that will take a few years to settle in, but this week it entailed much hand shaking and hugs goodbye to those who decided to jump ship (whilst the going is good?), planning meetings (where not a lot got done), panic over the lack of properly headed letter paper (okay that was just me)and also a large cake and wine. Much wine. I have had a hangover today.

BUT, hurrah, it's a public holiday!  So I took the dog for a walk to settle the head, made a quick visit to my friendly local scrapbook supply shop (The Mad Scrapper in Longniddry) for supplies, some  I needed and some I didn't (isn't that the way it always goes in a craft shop?), and then settled down to finish the book I started last week.

This is made with Fab Scraps papers, Dusty Attic die cuts that have been inked and embossed, various Tim Holtz elements, and some shells from the beach.  There are other bits and pieces but as I have a habit of chucking away the packaging I'm not sure what make they are (sorry).

The  white fish net I bought online from Calico Crafts and I distressed it with distress inks then dabbed it with Mod Podge mat sealer to stiffen it. This makes it much easier to work with.

Tada! Some of the pages - there are more but my phone refuses to upload!

Life's a Beach

I was going to sit down yesterday afternoon to start a new mini album, but got an unexpected invite to meet friends for coffee. This turned into an four hour coffee and shopping marathon. I was 20 minutes too early to meet up with Sharon and Dot, so decided on a quick butchers in Hobbycraft. That quick look cost me over £20 but I got a few bargains, including some Papermania clock hands and label plates from their Chronology range, for only a quid each.

Coffee drunk, Sharon abducted me and drove us to the Gyle (the other end of the city from where we were) to have a look at some dining chairs in Marks and Spencer's on which she wanted our opinion. Nice chairs, but undecided. However she did get the bargain of the century, surely, as she bought an office table/desk and chair from M&S reduced from £1200 down to £270! Lovely.

Today, I sat down and started my album. This will be made from Fabscraps 'Summer Collection' papers and tags. I managed to do one double sided page but had to take the dog out for a walk mid afternoon, so we went to the beach. Here's the first page:

An unexpected exit

Today has been an unusual day.  It snowed overnight, about 4 inches on ungritted roads,  and consequently the journey into work was an absolute nightmare.  It took 40 minutes to go the mile from my house to the A1 road into Edinburgh, and traffic was nose to tail all the way in to town.  The actual journey into work took 1 hour 45 minutes.  It usually takes about 35  minutes.  And when I got to work there was no heating or hot water.  Oh joy.  We soldiered on for the morning, hoping that the problem would be fixed, but it wasn't, and we were freezing, so we went home at lunch time.  Hopefully the heating will be all fixed tomorrow, but I'll wear lots of layers just in case,   Brrrr.

No time for crafty stuff today so here's a picture of an 'assemblage' I made as a Xmas present for a friend. I love doing these. I tried to make each square meaningful for my friend, such as the initials of her 4 children in scrabble letters, and the pink basket she uses for her jewellery business. I get a lot of bits and I pieces from car boot sales and charity shops.

Half the fun is searching for the items. Sometimes you find an item that just makes you go 'Huh? WTF is THAT?' But you have to buy it all the same. If anyone can throw any light on this please let me know!

Spring is in the air? You must be joking!

So much for Spring. It has either been sleeting or snowing for most of the weekend. Pah!

However, this did give me an excuse not to go out yesterday, which was great because I received a delivery of some lovely 7gypsies papers and other goodies on Friday afternoon and I was so excited to make something. So I sat down on Saturday morning and didn't get up again until I'd finished this mini album. Thanks to my understanding hubby who brought me occasional sustenance and random cups of coffee.

Spring is in the Air

Lots of sunshine about over the last few days, though still chilly, which has prompted my other half to dig up the raggedy, weed covered flower beds in the front garden. So off to Dobbies we did go for some primulas to fill in the bare patches. We've also decided to put some raised beds in the back garden so we can grow a few veg, but that will have to wait for a couple of months until we work out where to put them, clean the flagstones, repaint the deck etc. looking forward to a bit of sun. Hope springs eternal....

I finished off a little mini book today. This is made from one sheet of card stock, and covered with design papers. In this case I've used Graphic 45's Bird Song papers, which have a Japanese theme. Very pretty.

I love doing these one-page minis. They are so good for using up leftover papers from other projects. I got the idea for this mini from Klipngirl on YouTube. She has a great tutorial on how to make it and the vid is titled Vintage Pocket Mini Album Insert.

Dinner out tonight. Ducks at Aberlady. Very good but very quiet as we were the only people in the restaurant!

Tags of 2013 - Jan, Feb and March

This is my first blog.  No idea what I'm doing, so please excuse the ramble. It'll be interesting to see if I get any feedback.  er... is it possible to get feedback on a blog? I don't follow blogs myself, except accidentally.  I do have a video on YouTube  which shows a scrapbook album that I created and I intend to do a few more of those at some point. Books and vids. Sometime soon. Yeah.

Anyway, I've been following Tim Holz's '12 Tags of 2013' and having a go at making them myself.  The thing is that you can post your efforts on Tim's website (or is it a blog? Is there a difference?) and win a prize, and I quite fancied doing that but you have to do it through linking to your blog.  So here we are. My first blog. 
The idea behind '12 Tags' is to learn new techniques for using the Ranger/TH inks, paints and what-have-you, to inspire creativity, and obviously it is a great way to show off the various items in the Tim Holz (TH) range and thus encourage sales.  I don't need such encouragement, you just have to put something TH in my hand and point me in the direction of the till.

I didn't have all the items to create exactly the same tag, but as this is a creative exercise that's a good thing, as it gets you to think of alternatives.  I didn't have the bunny or the labels die, the tattered banner die nor the die used to cut the grass.  I also didn't have tinsel.  But I did have a similar 'on the edge' die to cut a label shape with, and I cut a circle out if it so I could put shiny thread behind the pendant I made using TH Easter Bunny  from the Seasonal paper range stuck behind a facetted gem (also TH, but you probably guessed that).  Grass and tattered banner were easy - I have sharp scissors and patience. 

I think it turned out alright.

And here are January and February's tags:

I hope you like them.  The February card was a bit of a faff.  I didn't have the Queen of Hearts stamp that TH used, so had to draw my own, freehand.  It's VERY hard to draw a mirror image freehand, I found! You can tell.

See you next blog.

Sara
x