Spring Celebrations

For those of you who are tenacious and have stuck around this ghost town - well done!  I know I'm pants at blogging lately but I seem to chase my own tail for most of my time.

Anyway, I thought I'd share a project that I did for Manor House Creations last month to celebrate the start of spring (although we're suffering from the wettest drought ever!)

My photos are a little challenged but bear with me.  The flowers are simply stunning!

The cake boxes are covered in a collection from The Scrap Cake - One Moment in Time by Agnieszka Anna Niedźwiecka.

I used a delicious mixture of stunning flowers from the current collections over at MHC.

I love the blousy powder pink Meringue that you can see above.  It's great for adding impace to a project.

The brightly coloured flowers you can see in this picture are Sprinkles, Party Lights which have the most stunning centres.  These flowers are just brilliant for filling in collecting together for real impact.

Just want to give you a heads up, but there's going to be a blog hop!  Yay!  The gorgeous gals at Manor House Creations are hosting a fabulous blog hop for Mother's Day in Australia next weekend.  You're invited!

Look what is on offer!

So set yourself a reminder and pop on over to the Manor House Creations blog next Sunday, 6th May for all the news.

See you next week!

Want to win some lovely Stash?

Those lovely people over at Merly Impressions are hosting a monthly challenge with a £20 shopping prize!  You'll be able to buy some fabulous stash including the latest Kaisercraft collections (which are just lush).

This month Emilie has set a great challenge to scrap something about yourself.

Here is Emilie's fabulous inspiration:

I am going to crack on with a layout myself this week but how about having a go yourself?  Hop on over to the Merly Impressions Blog for all the details and the linky.

I look forward to seeing your creations.

Sketchbook365

You up for a new challenge?  You may already know that Scrap365 has lots of beautiful layouts from designers all over the world.  Each month, some of those designs are turned into fab sketches making it easier for us to create projects of our own.  Now, Scrap365 is hosting its own sketch challenge and you can take part too.  Check out the new Sketchbook365 blog.

The first sketch is taken from this month's issue of Scrap365 and lucky me it happens to be based upon one my layouts.  Here's the sketch:

You'll have to check out the magazine for my original layout, but to play along I did another one:

I kept to the original pretty much exchanging the two photos for one.

I used a mixture of October Afternoon, Studio Calico and Lily Bee papers for the design.

Hop on over the challenge blog for more inspiration as well as how to enter the challenge.

Today is a Great Day

Really.  The weather has been hit and miss all week (mainly because it's the school holidays).  The forecast was sunshine and showers, but because we are tenatious, we went out anyway.  And it was a BEAUTIFUL day. 

We were at Stratford Upon Avon where it was a gorgeous spring day this afternooon. There was a pretty cherry tree with the most beautiful light.

While I was messing around with my camera, this guy was playing guitar at the edge of the river.  How marvellous!

Anyway, I thought I would share a layout I did recently. 

I went to a 'retreat' organised by my lovely friend Jackie.  We had such a blast.

I cut out the title on a Silhouette (thanks Barb!)  I think I need one of those.

The papers are all from Studio Calico kit.

Just some random embellishments with some canvas pieces that I stamped over.

Thanks for popping in.  I'm off to Ally Pally tomorrow with Jackie and Julie.  So excited!

Brighten up your Desk

I recently started working at the lovely Scrap365 magazine as assistant editor. So I have my very own desk which occasionally I can see when it's not piled up with lovely projects and layouts from the contributors. So I thought I'd make a little desk project which combines a calendar with family photos.

In true Blue Peter fashion (bit of a British joke), I made my calendar from an old cereal box.  It's a simple triangle using the side of the packet as the base of my stand. 

I used a kit from Digi Chick.  You can see more of my project on this post over at the Hybrid Chick.

Thanks for popping in.   Enjoy the rest of your week.

Spring has got to be my favourite time of year with Easter being the absolute best part.  My kit for Merly Impressions was incredible as always.  The Fine & Sunny collection is stunning.  Pretty colours and lovely birdies, sunshines and rainbows.

My layout features photos from last Easter.  I think Easter must have been later because the bluebells were out in force.  The colours complimented my photos perfectly.

I created this little collection of embellishments using the die-cut collectables (there are stacks in a pack), as well as hand cutting the bowl of eggs from the Forecast Gloss paper. 

You can find more detailed photos on the Merly blog and the Fine & Sunny collection here but you had best hop on over quickly before it sells out!

Thanks for popping in.  Not long now until Easter!

Escape

I went on a little break last month with some scrappy friends. We stayed at Toad Hall in Shropshire which was absolutely idyllic. For me, it was the perfect retreat. Good company, good food and doing you're own thing.

I used the Sweet Nothings collection from Kaisercraft for this layout.  I adore the colours and pretty images.

The stunning flowers are of course Manor House Creations.
 (Flowers: Fairy Floss, Taneisha, Nikita)

I altered my flowers slightly as part of a challenge.  I inked the edges to give them a vintage look as well as over-stamping with a script stamp.

Thanks for popping in.