August Sketch Challenge

Hi all it's time for another sketch challenge here at the Sarah's Cards blog.  There's a £20 voucher for the shop up for grabs again this month. All you have to do is create a layout inspired by this month's sketch and post a link to your work at the bottom of this post by the deadline of the end of the month.

Lou created this sketch for the August challenge:

This is Lou's layout featuring gorgeous new PJ's. Who doesn't love new PJ's!?!

Tracy G used the sketch to incorporate multiple photos of a family day out.

Ifa managed to get four photos onto her beautiful interpretation. 

We can't wait to see your entries so leave us a link below this post and the winner will be announced in September. Yes folks - SEPTEMBER already!! 

** Using Project Life Core Kits **

In yesterday's post, I showed the contents of some of the Project Life core kits.  Today, I'm going to show you what I did with some of those cards and the different page protectors that I bought.

The idea behind the cards is that it speeds up the recording process.  In its simplest form, you print photos, choose some cards and pop them in the slots in the page protectors and maybe add some journaling.  That is how I started my pages.  I didn't leave it there though; I used that as my base and then got creative and embellished the cards and photos using all sorts of things from my stash.  All of my journaling was handwritten which did help with keeping it quick and simple to do as well as making it more personal.

The first page I created was my title page.  The following photo shows the layout in its simplest form - just photos and cards from the kits:

Whilst this photgraph shows my finished page with added extras to make it more 'me':

I then started to record the things that we've been doing, starting in June as that was when I received the kits.  I may also go back and play catch up with the beginning of the year but I'm happy for now starting mid -year.

I printed the photos that I needed and started to think about how I could lay them out using full page and smaller insert pages. 

I looked through all of the cards choosing ones that matched the photos/themes and colours.  I mixed and matched cards from all of the kits that I bought (Jade, Midnight, Honey, Seasons & Wellington).  Some were purely used as 'decorative fillers' whilst some allowed specific journaling.

The following 'Before' and 'After' pictures hopefully give you an idea of how you can keep it simple and use the ready made cards as they are intended or be more creative and add your own embellishments: 

Before:

Before (a full page next to a smaller insert):

 After:

After (smaller insert):

Before:

After:

Before:

With a little added detail:

 After:

 

Before:

 After:

Before:

 After:

 

Before:

  After:

My top tip from working with these page protectors is to glue bulky embellishments to the top of the plastic.  All of the Thickers, wood veneer shapes and badges have been attached directly to the plastic page protectors using Tombow glue: this prevents creasing in the slots from thick embellishments.   

These finished pages show where I've added different elements directly to the plastic:

 

Some of my go to embellishments include: washi tape, labels, alphabet stickers, stickers, tags, wood shapes, badges, enamel dots, date stamp and paper clips.  I've also saved and used ephemera such as tickets and clothing tags.

In a couple of places, you may have noticed that I cut and split both photos and cards across the pockets in the divided protectors.  This allowed me to make things fit with my overall design of each page.  I've also  layered some of the smaller 3x4 cards on top of the bigger 6x4 cards too to add to the overall effect/look of a layout.

 

If you've been using your Project Life core kits, please share some links with us: we love to see what you've been creating.

All of the Project Life kits and page protectors can be found here in the shop. 

By Helen

** What's inside a Project Life Core Kit? **

When the highly anticipated Project Life kits finally arrived in the shop, I managed to get some.  I'd seen pictures of the boxes and some of the cards and had an idea of the colour schemes but it wasn't until they arrived (in the biggest box of scrapbooking supplies that I've ever received!) that I could finally appreciate what was inside the box of each core kit.

Firstly, you get a lot of cards.  In the full core kits, there are over 500 3x4 cards and over 60 4x6 cards, whilst in a mini kit you get 80 3x4 cards and 20 4x6 cards.  The designs are repeated and in the full kits, there can be 10 cards of one design.  This makes them ideal for splitting and sharing with a friend (which I did with Jen G!).

The next few photos show the inside of the boxes of the Jade, Honey and Midnight (mixed in together), Seasons and Wellington kits that I bought:

The following pictures show some of the designs on the cards (click on photos to enlarge to see more detail).  NB. they only represent about half of the cards that you actually get in each core kit.

Wellington kit:

Midnight 6x4 cards:

Honey 6x4 cards:

Midnight 3x4 cards:

Honey 3x4 cards:

Jade kit:

What I really like about the kits is that not only do they co-ordinate within a kit but it is really easy to mix and match the designs from different kits.  The designs are beautiful, easy to use and I have really enjoyed using them.  Even if you don't do or have any intention of doing Project Life, the kits are still very usable on traditional scrapbook layouts in place of papers.  And because you get so many copies of each design, there's no need to feel like you have to hoard your favourite designs.

Come back tomorrow to see how I've used them to record some recent memories.

All of the Project Life ranges can be found here in the shop.

By Helen

Drum roll please......

Thank you for entering the July sketch challenge on our blog. We had lots of lovely entries this month and found it very hard to choose a winner.

The design team loved all the different ways the sketch was used, but in the end all agreed the at our favourite entry was ALI PARRIS.. 

We loved the the lovely details, layers and white space on this page and the way that Ali has slightly twisted the sketch.

Congratulations Ali please contact lianne@sarahscardsltd.com to claim your £20 shop voucher.

Love Claire

Cutting it

Hello ladies, Tracie here,

With so many of us enjoying summer holidays at the moment, stash shopping probably isn't a priority, but with so many gorgeous patterned papers out there how can we resist?

As most of the papers these days are double-sided and have such wonderful designs on them why not use them to the max! (great if you're on a budget and with all that money you save you can afford more patterned papers!!)

For my first layout I dived into the gorgeous My Minds Eye, Find your wings and fly range

I cut out all the gorgeous little hot air balloons from the balloon parade paper.

By folding them in half and gluing three of them together I was able to give them a 3D effect

For my second layout I took my inspiration from the brickwork in the photos, I took the bits I'd cut out from the background paper, reversed them and arranged them around the cut out to extend the pattern.

I cut out the cute roses from the My Minds Eye Floral paper and added a few dots of liquid pearls to add interest

My final layout shows my beautiful granddaughter who turned fourteen this year. 

I found the layered ephemera paper was a perfect starting block to build upon and by cutting the repeat 

images from the labelled paper and adding them using foam pads I could add some depth to it, a little bit of washi tape and some chipboard from the same range and I was practically there with minimum effort! 

So that's all from me for now;  for those of you off enjoying sunnier climes, have a wonderful holiday!

 For those of you, like me, staying home and putting up with the rain after all that lovely weather, make your own sunshine and go and do some scrapping! 

Think pink!

It's Louise again with my last LO to share... Well hopefully to share as I'm trying this from the iPad for the first time as the pc finally decided to die this morning!

Yesterday I shared photos from The Manchester Color Run, and today I have a photos from my first 5k Race for Life. I'd always wanted to take part in a race for life but never signed up as I didn't think I'd ever be able to run 5k, so it always went on the 'to do when I've lost weight' list. After losing a very special friend to cancer I decided that this was the year to take part and raise whatever I could for cancer research, and I signed up straight away. I was nervous about being able to complete the race, because I didn't want to disappoint myself by stopping and walking.
When I turned the corner towards the finishing line I was delighted to see that I'd done it in 25 minutes and 55 seconds! And the good thing is, if it hadn't have been so crowded with such narrow paths to run on I know I could've easily knocked - few minutes off that time!
I used the Crate Paper The Pier range for my LO, loving the doily cloud paper as a background for all the pink!



I handout the flowers from a sheet of Amy Tan paper adding the doodled stalks and leaves with black pen. I wanted to n clued the medal on the LO, so treated it as a flower drawing round it and adding a stem.


For my title I used some fabric thickets from my collection, and used pink mist to paint the word cancer.
The cute little cameras by Alison Kreft were added with pink ink so that they were subtle and didn't pop out from the page too much.


Thank you for stopping by. Please come back every couple of days to see what the rest of the DT have been up to. If you want to see us use a particular product or to demonstrate any technique, please drop us a line in the comments box.

Louise
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Colour Funtastic!

Hi all it's Louise here with a couple of LOs created using a mix of beautifulness from the shop. I sometimes find it quite overwhelming choosing products to work with when there is so much choice, but this month I strayed from the norm for me and went pink! I chose the Crate Paper The Pier range as the colours are fresh and fun, and perfect for the photos I had in mind.

I had the Manchester Color Run coming up, and hoped I'd get a couple of good photos to use. It was a bit of a risk buying papers for photos that hadn't yet been taken but I wasn't disappointed!

The Color Run is new to this country from America (hence the incorrect spelling of colour... lol) and is described as the 'happiest 5k on the planet'. At each 1k mark you run trough a colour station where volunteers throw powder paint at you. So by the end of the race your pristine white t-shirt is a colourful work of art... not to mention your face, hair and those little mesh holes on your trainers that suck up paint like you wouldn't believe!

The first Lo shows a picture of clean me with the boys at the beginning of the race, and colourful me at the end of the race.

I started off by using a variety of brightly coloured mists to splatter my white card background. I got a bit carried away and it was too much, so I added another piece of white over the top and used a Crafter's Workshop template to add a couple of paint splats. I kept patterned paper to a minimum on this LO as I wanted the colours against the white to be the main design element.

                          

I cut some of the hexagonal designs from Heatwave and tucked them behind my photo in the order of the stripes on my t-shirt. Stamping the chevron from this Alison Kreft set over the top.

                          

I used a selection of washi tape with stamped images and patterned paper to create a cluster in the top corner with my 'before' pic.

                          

The plastic green and pink arrows were from a Basic Grey Knee Highs & Bow Ties embellishment pack.

I cut the camera border stamp up so that I had 5 individual camera stamps, much preferring to use them this way. And they are just the right size and super cute to add a little extra detail.

My title was stamped over a colourful arrow border, and the year was added using Simple Stories stickers.

                          

My second LO shows a photo of me and Things 1 & 2 at the end of the run.

As you cross the finishing line you are given a sachet of powder paint... much more fun than a medal!

I found the boys waiting for me in the crowd, and dumped the paint all over them! Initially Harry wasn't very impressed... I'm not sure if that was because he didn't like the paint, or the fact that the paint was pink!

I used a grid background and added a border of stamped arrows. I filled in a few of the arrows with an embossing pen and used brightly coloured ZING embossing powders to add a pop of colour. I hand cut the hexagon shapes again, and stamped the cameras randomly using different coloured inks.

The little doodle circles were cut from a sheet of patterned paper and added across the page for extra detail.

I created this embellishment cluster using a mix of pre-cut embellishments from the Basic Grey set, a tag made from the Crate chevron paper and a couple of stamped images.

A couple of strips of washi tape and a black Thickers title completed the LO.
The event was a huge amount of fun and I wanted to capture that in bright, colourful LOs. I can highly recommend you sign up next year if The Color Run comes to a town near you.
I'll be back tomorrow with a very pink themed LO... and you really don't see that from me very often!

Louise

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