Savouring

 I really love the striking simplicity of this layout. Of course it does fit with the theme of putting down the camera and savouring the time spent with family, however I also enjoyed using the dark grain paper to draw attention to the wooden table and the yellow paper picks up the colour from the glass of apple juice on the table.

Happy Clusters vol 1

Childhood Memories 

Cuppa

A little bit of heaven

Top 5 Templates

Bergen

I love to show off the versatility of a kit by scrapping something off topic - for example this kit is called Childhood Memories and is versatile enough to be used for heritage layouts, childhood, school - but I used it for a travel layout and I LOVE it.

Childhood Memories

Natural Beauty

top 5 template

Summer's End

Just a little OCD

 I submitted this layout for critique at the Masterful ScrapBook Designs office hours with Debbie Hodge and Tiffany Tilman, saying:
 I would love some feedback on this layout. It is very simple and yet story-centric. It is about our silly cat and the way he drinks water. 
I have a visual triangle of orange and grey items. Bows, stitching and splatter for dimension.
Is there something that I am missing? Somewhere to add tension and drama?
 
I used Janet Phillips template In the spotlight 2, Jennifer Labre's kit - Home Sweet Home, River-Rose Design's Cats and Dogs & Patti Knox Catnip Crew alpha.
Debbie said that she'd like to see the date tag moved to the right a little and Sue suggested that I move the title to the top or the bottom. so when I nudged the date tag I moved the title as well.

S suggested that I make the title more obvious - less hidden behind the flowers and Tiffany suggested that I add an unexpected pop of a different colour and maybe some brush work. When I moved the title the brush work became clearer and I made the one flower smaller so that the one with the pop of pink became more prominent. I also flipped the ball of yarn horizontally so that it leads the eye towards the kitty embellishment.

And I like the end result even more than the original. Total win-win.

My thanks to everyone for their encouraging words and their creative input.

Inspired by Gallery Walls

I have probably mentioned before how great Debbie Hodge over at Masterful Scrapbook Design is at spotting trends. I so appreciate her eye and wisdom in these matters. Usually just by the time I am ready to use a trendy item, it's so last season already.

My layout is on the Get It Scrapped Blog, in this article.

I first created this one, very similar to a real gallery wall I have going up the stairs in our home. I have these animal photos and very rustic frames. Then I realized that I had missed the point of the article and it was to create a gallery wall of things that were important to me, so using frames and edges from a variety of LDrag's kits. I added three lots of black wordart to create the visual triangle.

L Drag's Designs at ScrapMatters.

 “My gallery wall is filled with the people and things that are most important to me: my family, home, pets, photography, scrapbooking, fresh flowers and orange tea in my favourite mug.”

“On an actual wall arrangement, I would convert the photos to black-and-white to unifythem. This is a great collection of recent photos that represent me, though, and so I kept the color. I loved using frames all in different colors and roughed up along the edges, I added deep digital shadows to emphasize their dimension. I used the alignment and spacing tools in Photoshop to place the framed images. I added decorative borders at canvas top and bottom rather than embellishing the frames. The borders keep the eye contained within the confines of the layout and add more dimension, color and accents. 

In a block

The latest ScrapBook Coach Class - in a block

could have been made just for me.

Debbie Hodge suggests letting go of templates and following her step by step suggestions to tell our stories.

I have to be honest and say that it is a little outside of my comfort zone, I love templates because they usually have many more layers than I would use if left to my own devices and as most digital kits have the most fabulous patterned papers I want to include more of them.

I do however LOVE blocks and Grids.

the latest Masterful ScrapBooking Article highlights this.

Lesson one requires two photos placed kitty corner and a bold back ground.

What? This is bold for me!

I struggle to not pull colours from my photos and her blazer even though it's navy blue in real life, reads as black in the photos so I chose the chalk board background.

I used flowers from the kit (my pet name for her is Rosie) to create the visual triangle. I love the brushwork that anchors the foundation of the focal cluster as well as cue-ing theme. (it was a school outing). The stitching, string and pencil add a feeling of dimension and lead the eye around the page.

Scrapyrus is a guest designer at ScrapMatters for September.

 In a block 2 uses the golden ratio. We were instructed to contrast the intensities of the layers. So because my photos were fairly dark I layered them on a light matting, followed by a dark, etc.
I loved adding the crocheted circles to break the grid adding tension and drama as well as the dimension they add. The Mama bird represents me, peering over her shoulder and fixing the dropped stitches.

Laughing Garden

Spectacular style

Tuesday freebie template 8-20-13

Shine

Back to School

School spirit

Stacked and Clustered 3

We spent 2 days in port here. It was flipping cold on this day. I had my jacket and poloneck, but had left the jersey off as when I had worn it the previous outing I got too hot. Hubby had booked us the Golden Tour Coach. I think it was supposed to be a six hour bus tour. Misleading though when they drop you at a place for an hour and a half.

 First stop was at a geothermal sight. We saw the rain and the pipes. Sulpher smell at times too. I loved the black lava every where with the mossy green vegetation. The water comes from the geysers at 83C and is piped into the city center 30kms away and only loses 1C in the process. They use this for heating and hot water and the geo thermal provides electricity.

 The famous Gulfoss Waterfall. It was magnificent.

 We walked around the tourist shop but everything was incredibly expensive. A pair of woollen mittens R220, R90 for a fridge magnet etc. Not much was bought except I need to thaw out so opted for the world reknown lamb soup. R150, it came with a free refill and 2 small bread rolls. Andrew chose a cheaper option muffin, but then did have some of the refill.

 from there we went to the geysir, much stronger sulphur smell. The geysir erupts every 4 to 8 minutes - but when you;re holding the camera to your eye and freezing your fingers it feels much much longer. We had to be careful to stick to the path, but new hot spots develop overnight so that wasnlt too reassuring.

 I saw this trickle of water and knowing that is was warm contemplated touching it, however the warning signs say it is between 80 and 100C. I didn't test it.

We saw Icelandic horses, sod buildings and a geo thermal power plant. Was incredibly interesting that Iceland sits over 2 plates that are separating - hence the abundance of volcanoes and geo thermal energy. I fancied some coffee at the electric plant too, but even I baulked at paying R50 for a cuppa.

Faroe Islands

We disembarked and the weather was drizzly and not suitable to meander around town. We heard some people booking a bus trip to one of the islands further north and also booked the 400 to Klasvik. (R648)

It was incredibly picturesque, the bus was comfortable and quite luxurious. We walked around Klasvik, I took pictures, Hubby had spotted a sports shop from the bus so we walked there and he shopped for a bathing costume. We saw woolly goats, sheep, grass covered roofs, lovely waterfalls and just quaint houses.

 From here down photos are from Klasvik - the road to this town often went through tunnels, under the water which connected the islands.

It was chilly and we wanted to thaw out so we popped into the tourist office and asked for a coffee shop. This was upstairs and more like an artist studio. We had coffee, when we wanted to pay they sent us to pay downstairs. No slip - just trusting us to be honest. -Wouldn't work in Africa.

Most of the folk spoke good English, I suppose because they are quite close to Britain. We bought a fridge magnet and then some water at a cafe. Didn't really walk around Torshavn itself, we went back on the boat.