Project Life with Jen N

How are you liking all the lovely new products hitting the shop fresh from CHA? Every time I go onto the shop website there's something new and wonderful to admire (and buy) right now!
I had a hard time choosing products for my February project life pages, there were just too many to choose from. But I'll come back to that in a moment.
Firstly, I have to show you the rest of my January pages. If you read last month you'll know that life sort of got in the way a bit for me. Well, that hasn't stopped. Our house has been hit with every conceivable winter nursery school bug and illness you can imagine! It feels like it's been a constant stream of antibiotics, doctor visits and boxes of tissues over the last 5 weeks. I hope we have reached the end of it now - cross your fingers for us! In amongst the piles of laundry, dishes and dust I have managed to catch up on January and complete half of February so I'm considering that a win.

First up is week three. A fairly quiet week at home and mostly consisting of various fun and games in the house!
A quick reminder of my main products for January:
Project Life Dear Lizzy 5th & Frolic
Fancy Pants Be Loved Collection

Here is week four. This week was even quieter than the last as I was in hospital at the beginning of the week! When I can't choose a stand out photo I like to make a little collage of 4 in a square - it's a nice way to show off a few favourites together as a set.

Week five is the changeover week. I've never particularly stuck to one set of supplies per month before, preferring to change weekly, but I like the speed at which my pages are coming together with just one box of goodies to play with! I wasn't sure how to work the changeover week - continue with January supplies or dive into February? I chose to work with my new box of supplies simply because I looked through my January box and felt I was getting a bit low on certain items, and also because I really wanted to play with the new stuff! It was pretty freeing to go through the January leftovers and throw out most of it. Half used sticker sheets with all the non useful letters left, die cut packs with only the sayings/icons I wasn't too keen on left, a few snippets of paper that weren't really big enough to do anything with - they all got binned! It was refreshing! I did keep some things - leftover 3x4 and 6x4 cards, and half a ticket roll from Fancy Pants.

My new set of supplies included:
Project Life Core Kit - Slate
Studio Calico Wanderlust - Labels
Simple Stories Homespun - Instasquares, papers, stickers
Dear Lizzy - Puffy Hearts
Miscellaneous papers from Amy Tangerine Plus One, Studio Calico Lemon Lush & Studio Calico Wanderlust

There was a lot of cuteness this week from the littlies to record - holding hands, looking adorable, playing nicely, taking selfies, enjoying each other. I try to "keep things real" and document a rounded view of our life, but this week the good definitely outshone the negative! I love weeks like that!.

The last week I have to share with you right now is week six. There was so much nuttiness this week. I had so many pictures of my son with pants/trousers on his head I didn't want to include them all but I felt I had to include quite a few for the reader to get an accurate view of how this week was for us! There were also a lot of pictures of my daughter trying new foods as we had just started the weaning process. I guess some weeks you just have a lot of repetition in your life, and that is fine. This week my daughter turned 6 months. We did have a little photoshoot, which I will record on an insert page along with some journalling, but I am waiting to get my photos printed in a big batch. I've used home printing for the rest of my pictures this month. I've stuck a note above my desk to remind me that I need to come back and fill in that gap at some point. I'm okay with that. Previously it might have stopped me from moving onward, I would have felt stuck, but no more!

I'm hopful of catching up the rest of February this week, and then I can get into that box of March goodies - I've chosen bits and pieces from the new My Minds Eye collections, along with assorted other goodies. I can't wait to use them on my pages!
xxx

Freebie printable labels!

If like us, you can't get enough of labels on your scrapbooking and project life pages, you'll love these!  Here's a little freebie printable for you, just to say thank you for being lovely.  Download link below.

Download them here

Personal use only please x

Hi there, Tracy G here to share a few cards  I've made using scraps of paper, a few punches and a couple of dies by My Favorite Things.

These are the dies I used,

Party banner and Calendar Components

 I love the party banner and think it looks good on cards for all occasions.

 Here I used the hearts to form a four leaf clover.

 I made the cute little chick using a punched circle and 2 hearts for the wings, 2 stars for the feet and an asterisk for the 'hair', from the Calendar set.

Don't forget there's a couple of days left to enter our sketch challenge this month. You can find all the details here.

Three photos from Berlin with a little help from Crate Paper

Surprise! It is Ifa with you today. The DT had a reshuffle and I have a new slot. What are you up to this half term ? Put your feet up and rest, right ? I hope so but whatever you get up to, make sure you have fun.

Today I am going to share a couple of layouts from my visit to Berlin last Christmas. Don't worry, they are not Christmas layouts but I am using Valentine's range. I try not to get too pigeon-holed by colours ( my boys love pink, didn't I tell you ? ) or specific icons such as heart. Ok, maybe Christmas baubles on non-christmassy layout will have you label me barmy! But I am not that bonkers, right ?  Ok, let's get a move on and let you be the judge.

I have used the very lovely Love Notes by Crate Paper. I always have a soft spot for Crate Paper's Valentine's range.  But to mix it up a bit, I have also used Crate Paper Close Knits for some more saturated colours.

I ordered the Love Notes chipboard {{aaah}}, stickers,badges and Thickers. It would appear that the chipboard is now out of stock in store but I hope some of you lucky ones have a pack.

Can you see how sweet the chipboard and stickers are, mixed up here in my "Love Berlin" layout ?

For "Love Berlin", I started with the assortment of chipboards and stickers, straight down the middle. I added some papers underneath followed by the Thickers title. I added the photos directly above this pile of loveliness and wrote my journalling underneath. And the photos are intentionally haphazardly glued down to free my inner obsession with straight lines. {{and ps: that chipboard in the middle of journalling is covering up a mistake }}

The next layout also features 3 photos from Berlin. Instead of it being about Berlin which I am sure many more other layouts will be, I wanted to document the fact that I enjoy spending time with my boys and dearest A. 

I had some leftover paperclips from last month which became tiny frames this month. I had to use four paper clips because that is our family's magic number.  They are framing little stickers labelled, me, you, you & you. Can you see in the close up ?

I used some Amy Tan alphabet stickers for the title. Because these letters are quite transparent, I love that the background print come through.  Taking this further, I wrote my journalling over the top of the title.  I had to use a black Sharpie to ensure that my journalling will dry over the shiny letters. Some old red letters date the photos and also tie in with the splash of reds echoed elsewhere in layout.

  That's all from me this month.  I hope I have inspired you to create this half term. See you next month.

Cameras at the Ready!!

If you're at all like me, it was your love of photography that led you to scrapbooking. As the craft revolves around photos and taking snaps, I often snap up any camera-themed embellishments and stickers as they are easy to work in to page, whatever your theme. It will be no surprise then, that when I spotted this Crafter's Workshop 12x12 template, I couldn't wait to get my mitts on it!

I'd never really been drawn to the templates before as I'd always associated them with making backgrounds using messy pastes and mists and paints which, although always look fab, my backgrounds are usually patterned paper. However, when I saw this I knew I wanted to use it to make my own embellishments.

Here's how:

First I'd chose which camera I wanted to use, and trace it onto my chosen patterned paper:

 I'd then begin to trace cut out the "detail" pieces of the camera from other patterns (great for using up scraps!)

 Once all layered up and stuck together, I'd add in pen details:

 And my finished patterned camera would be ready to go on my layout!

 They can look at bit strange and obscure during the piecing together stage,

 but adding the black doodled outlines really brings it together and makes it look like a camera:

Here's my first page, documenting about how we can look forward to family bike rides and make use of the beautiful cycle track just across the road from our home now that my step daughter has mastered riding her bike without stabilisers.

For my second page, as well as making camera embellishments, I also used the template to make my own journalling card. I began by selecting my patterned paper and tracing one of the camera tempaltes using a brown AC Slick Writer pen.

I popped it into place on my page, and then drew journalling lines across it with a black pen:

 Hey presto, one camera-shaped journalling card ready to go:

Here's my completed page, Reason to Smile. It tells the story of lovely Sally Anne, who was my soft bunny toy as early as I can remember. She used to go everywhere with me, as this photo circa 1984 shows, and I once nearly screamed an aeroplane out of the sky when I discovered she was not coming to Spain with us - the only thing that calmed me was the reassurance that she had stayed behind to help my Dad and Grandpa move everything to our new house while we were away! She had been gone (but not forgotten!) for years, so I was over the moon to find her in pretty good rooting, tooting, cow-girl condition in a bag in my mums attic when she moved house last year. Sally Anne and Natalie Anne were reunited!! She now sits pretty in my craft room, although does get treated to the odd day out - last Summer I held a Teddy Bear's Picnic for my class; each child brought their favourite Teddy, and I took Sally Anne in to meet them all!

I also used the template to make a quick birthday card; this time I popped a bit of 3D foam in between each layer to add a bit of depth.

I also added a pearl and a crystal to this one to add a bit of detail:

 There are lots of lovely CHA arrivals in the shop at the moment - why not grab a template with some new papers to make your own embellishments to coordinate with your pages :)

February Sketch Challenge

Are you all ready for another sketch challenge?

This month I have made the sketch for you and the girls in the team have been making a few samples too.

February Sketch

Here is my layout please excuse poor quality lighting due to this terrible weather.

This card was created by Tracy Gough

This is Ifa's pretty layout

Tracie Oakes provided this striking page

and finally Jen Garrett made this lovely hand stitched page.

We are looking forward to seeing your creations this month have fun!!

                                                 Claire x

Challenge Winner for January

Hi all.

Thankyou for taking part in last months sketch challenge we have had some lovely entries but can only have one winner..

The winner of our January sketch challenge is Kerry Bruce with this fantastic layout.

Kerry please contact Sarah or Lianne to claim your prize :)