Sleepy Sunday

The weather is pants, its early and everyone else in my house is asleep.

So here I am back on the blog, I have no idea if anyone even reads these things anymore.

I’m going to revive it for a while and see what the interest is, I love instagram but its not ideal if I want to share something downloadable or printable.

Lets talk “documenting your stories” do you still do this on a regular basis and in what format ?

I will admit that my scrap booking has tailed right off, the most I have been doing over the last eighteen months is for design team commitments, classes and my Christmas album ( I even managed to complete 2017’s one, 2018’s still needs finishing)

For no apparent reason I don’t seem to be scrap booking because I want to, for the joy of it, as a creative outlet, if I’m honest its become a chore (Shocked Face !) This year I have reduced my design team commitments and I’m all about trying to get back to the point where what I produced gave me joy.

I know its February already but I have decided to start a photo pocket album to document my families stories this year. I do this every year and unfortunately most years I never finish, I lose momentum and again it becomes a chore.

This year I’m going with a different physical format 9×12, I still take take lots of photos as does my husband but I’m not just going to document all the daily repetitive minutiae just because it happened, that’s too much like a diary for me.

Whilst I’ve been pondering my story telling format and wasting time on instagram and pinterest looking at how everyone else is tackling their documenting methods, I designed some 3×4 cards and one 6×4 to use in my albums.

If you think that they might be useful for you please feel free to download them, please be kind and credit me as the designer if you do use them – thanks

To Download pick them up here

 

Helloooooooo !

Well what can I say . . . Its been a looooong time since I posted here, over eighteen months !

So whats my excuse ? Actually i don’t have one, sorry.

All I can say is that one of my goals for 2019 is to “stay in touch” on every level, so I figured I’d post something on here this morning and see if anyone is still here, checking in.

I’m going to share a layout of mine that is over on the GoGogetaway Blog today. I used Jo Boland’s Peep Hole Mini Book class taught at the October GoGO Getaway retreat as inspiration.

I really enjoyed making his layout, revisiting the memories of last years summer holiday and challenging myself to be inventive with this technique.

Thanks for checking in, stay tuned, I’m going to be sharing my 2019 pocket page album progress and how I got on with my documenting Christmas album.

Jot Magazine Issue 18 is HERE !

LOVE this publication as you all know.

Its beautifully designed and has a varied mix of projects and designers.

I am lucky enough to have a couple of layouts featured in this issue.

Issue 18 is full to the brim of inspiration please go take a look.

Layout Love

i thought I would pop this on here today, it’s not my usual clean simple, graphic style but I really like it.

this was a challeng over on the GoGo Facebook page back in February, set by the lovely Sarah Packer.

A five elements challenge, I used Patterned paper background, two or more photos, luggage tag, twine and Washi tape.

Thanks for checking in.

just a heads up that next month I am lucky enough to have two layouts featured in the readers galleries in JOT Magazine. Obviously I will share here once issue 18 has been published. Vey excited !

 

Jot Magazine April Mood Board

no excuses for blog posts being so few and far between.

Inspired this month by the april mood board over at Jot Magazine

I used the bottom left room photo as my initial inspiration, the border of the beautiful patterned rug gave me the idea for the patterned borders using a couple of mustard coloured patterned papers and a navy  dot pattern. The float frames contain nearly all of the colour swatches for this month and reflect the floral theme of a couple of the mode boards photos. finally I added one of the quotes and the metallic alphas.

published !

Well its been a while and I had forgotten how much of a thrill it is to have your creative work selected and published in a magazine that promotes your hobby.

JOT magazine issue 17 is out today

As always its chock full of inspiration and beautiful designs, my small contribution is in the hearts gallery

Here is a close up, a list of products used is after the images.

 

American Crafts smooth cardstock- white

(Heart stencil and luggage tag)

BH PL midnight collection – grey heart paper

Pink Paisley Paige Evans no: 10 – red heart paper

AC Dear Lizzy Luck Charm Dreamcatcher – mason jar

Simple Stories Say Cheese  – You and me card

AC thickers Dream – small gold hearts

 AC Story – Glitter word and large heart

Freckled Fawn wood chips number circles

 

Jot February Mood Board

Absolutely loved having a go at this challenge again.

You’ve still got a few days left to get your entries in HERE

I managed to use most of the colours I think and the gingham, arrows (on my background paper) roses (cut file)  hearts, polka dots and even a nod to the tattoo using a tattoo style sunburst under my gingham heart.

 

Thanks for Looking

January is done

OKAY so I managed to keep up with the weekly documenting, sticking with the plan.

Just in case anyone is curious I am using a couple of fonts religiously, Magnolia Sky for the art brush words and AlexandriaFLF for the body text/journaling again all in the interests of keeping it simple for me.

I am somewhat light on photos for the last two weeks but I’m not letting that stop me from completing the week – hello patterned paper and project life cards.

Im sure that this album will get “less white” as I go along and get into my groove with this. but I like that it is giving me a foundation for all my pages. Its also helping me to stop over thinking all the design decisions.

My intention is to start using lots of inserts of differing sizes and maybe the odd 12×12 layout when I complete them too.

Im not going to keep boring you all with constant photos of all my pages but if you are interested I am posting them on an instagram account craftrebel65 

Thanks again for checking in here.

Documenting 2017

Ok so its official I have started

Here are a couple of photos of my “title page” and my “introduction page” I’m going for a totally simple approach this year to help me stay caught up.

( apologies for the glare, insert embarrassed lazy face emoji )

The “around the sun” quote I lifted from Ali Edwards the rest is simple and self explanatory  I think, any questions feel free to ask in the comments

I am staying old school, sticking to 12 x 12 pages and a weekly Monday to Sunday format. I decided to have a Week Number card on each page that has a summary of the weeks happenings. So much in our weekly lives are routine and theres only so many times I want to write “went food shopping, went to drum practice, took dogs out, blah blah blah” Im sure in ten years time my kids aren’t going to want to see that either.

If there is a particular story to tell or a funny incident etc then I plan on highlighting that with a card of its own. The photos are mainly square as I’m lazy and use my phone, like all the time ! Most of the time Im putting them in on 3 x 4 white card with a caption, portrait orientation as Im using that style of pocket pages.

Stay tuned for more rambling and sharing of the first three weeks of 2017.

Im back, again . . .

seriously, I’m not sure that people even read blogs anymore, it seems to me that a lot of the creative peeps I follow are concentrating more on FB pages and IG to keep themselves visible.

So if you are still fighting your way through the cobwebs to see if I’ve resurfaced – Thank You.

Im not sure what manifestation this re appearance is going to take so I’m not going to make any promises just that Im hoping to make regular meaningful weekly posts here.

Creatively Ive just moved from my December Daily style album where I documented Christmas 2016 to my 12 x 12 format pocket page album where I am documenting my families weekly stories. I did toy with the idea of changing to the 12 x 9 format for this but they were so hard to source in the UK that I gave up. I can always drop different sized page protectors into my 12 x 12 anyway so thats what I’m doing.

What else . . . Im no longer a full time member of the GOGO design team, Im now what I believe they call in the intelligence community, a sleeper, I will only be activated when the need arises

I put out some feelers for design teams, just for the sheer hell of it, but it appears my style is not currently “on trend” so I guess its back to just amusing myself !

Anyhoo thats about it for now.