One manufacturer per month update

Cardstock: American Crafts; Patterned Paper: Studio Calico; Letter Stickers: Studio Calico, Cosmo Cricket, Jenni Bowlin Studio; Punches: Fiskars and Martha Stewart; Font: Traveling Typewriter (from dafont.com).

Eek! Does anyone else feel like 2010 is flying by? It feels like yesterday that I was munching on a box of Guylian Belgian Chocolates (I'm addicted to the roasted hazelnut praline) that came with my Easter egg...and now it's almost the middle of April. WOW. Anyhoo, after a busy couple of weekends away things are pretty much back to normal, which means that I've had a bit more time to catch up on my 2010 album. As a quick recap, for this album I decided at the beginning of the year to use one manufacturer per month (blogged here). The manufacturers that I have used so far are:

• January - Jenni Bowlin Studio (Town Square and Red/Black Line Extension)
  
• February - Pink Paislee (Cupid)
  
• March - Studio Calico (Home Front)
  
• April - American Crafts (Dear Lizzy)

And for the next few months I'm planning to use:

• May - Basic Grey (Nook and Pantry)
• June - American Crafts (Botanique)
  
• July - Lily Bee (Hello Sunshine)
• August - Cosmo Cricket (Material Girl)

I definitely had some reservations about the idea of limiting myself to just one core manufacturer each month, but so far it has worked out far better than I could have possibly hoped. It has especially helped to constrain my spending on supplies (this was a major motivating factor for using one manufacturer). I'm also enjoying the challenge of using the same patterned paper for multiple layouts in ways that will ensure my album isn't too repetitive. Perhaps the one drawback at the beginning of the year was the monotony of using predominantly the same collection from one manufacturer...but now that it's April (and now that I have collections from four manufacturers), I can switch for a while and work on layouts for February or March, until the 'fatigue' has worn off.

The layout (Muffin's Ritual) at the top of this post was put together using Studio Calico's Home Front. I don't naturally gravitate towards these colours, but I love how they blend together so well...and I love those letter stickers! I should probably mention that Muffin (the chocolate Labrador featured in the layout) is Jamie's family pet. She is quite the character, and over the past few years we've bonded on my visits up to Scotland :) Muffin loves attention, so when I found this apposite quote online I knew I had to create a layout dedicated to her quirks.

Cardstock: American Crafts; Pattered Paper: Pink Paislee; Punches: Ek Success, Fiskars; Letter Stickers: American Crafts, October Afternoon, Jenni Bowlin Studio; Bling: from stash.

I created this layout using Pink Paislee's Cupid collection (to accompany this layout). Jamie and I tried in vain to take a couple of self-portrait photos over the Valentine's Day weekend (the sort where you stick the camera out in front of you and hope for the best), but sadly none of them came out particularly well. I was still keen to document them, so I edited them in Picnik and settled on a unifying black and white for both. I'm still obsessed with those October Afternoon Mini Market Stickers..and I'm super excited about ordering these. I am ridiculously addicted to letter stickers!

I'm spending the rest of the week in the library researching another essay (luckily this one is the last!). I'm also working on a new blog design, which will hopefully be up and running in a couple of weeks....I'm excited!!! I'll keep you updated....And I'm catching up on my Google Reader, so expect lots of comments very soon!

Thank you so much for looking!

Valentine's Day (ShakeItPhoto style)...

Cardstock: Bazzill Basics; Patterned Paper: Pink Paislee; Letter Stickers: American Crafts, Jenni Bowlin Studio, Making Memories, October Afternoon, Cosmo Cricket, Dymo; Punch: Dovecraft; Fonts: Another Typewriter, Traveling Typewriter, American Typewriter; Adhesive: American Crafts

Sometimes (but rarely for me), a layout just falls into place. This was one of those layouts. I spent a good ten minutes staring at the Pink Paislee patterned papers (the 'one manufacturer' for February), my collection of Thickers and letter stickers...and finally the photographs. Oh how I love the ShakeItPhoto app for the iPhone! For those times when it is completely inappropriate to whip out your camera and take 250 photos of the contents of your plate, the ShakeItPhoto app (and the iPhone in general) are a scrapbooker's/aspiring paparazzo's dream. Anyway, ten minutes later the layout was pretty much in place. This is highly unprecedented - it was very much a 'ta-da!'/hallelujah moment. I'm keep my fingers crossed that I have more of them...

I tried three new things on this layout: the new Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type letter stickers; the October Afternoon Mini Market letter stickers; and American Crafts' This to That permanent glue runner. All three are awesome. I would definitely recommend the AC adhesive - it was very smooth, very easy to use...and it actually adhered all of the glue to the page, rather than half of it...although I have a feeling that my problems with glue runners are more to do with the person applying them than with the product itself. *Ahem.* I had a lot of fun putting the grid together - to give it a bit of dimension I used two different sizes of 3D foam dots (applied haphazardly to the page). I think those Lullaby Glitter Thickers are my favourites so far...I just wish they were available in more colours!

We had such an incredible Valentine's weekend. Luckily for me, Jamie figured out pretty early on in our relationship that the fastest way to my heart is through food, so he took me to the Palm restaurant (an American Steakhouse) for dinner on Saturday. WOW. The food there was unforgettable. We did a lot of laughing...I sampled a Razzmopolitan (or two) and the waiter gave us free desserts. We will definitely be going back! On Sunday morning we had bacon sandwiches and exchanged cards, Jamie gave me five beautiful red roses (one for each year of our relationship) and then we wandered off to Starbucks for hot chocolates and mocha frappuccinos before settling down to watch TV.

I may have also themed my socks to the occasion.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Where has the time gone?!

Wow, has it seriously been over a week already? The last few days have honestly gone by in a blur - after being snowed in for 8 days, things are definitely back to reality! Speaking of being snowed in, I have a couple of layouts to share with you:

Cardstock in Rouge, White and Stone, American Crafts; Kraft and white Dotted Swiss cardstock (inner circle), Bazzill Basics Paper; Apron Lace punch, Fiskars; circles and snowflakes cut using Making Memories Slice Cordless Design Cutter (with Mistletoe Design Card); letter stickers, Jenni Bowlin Studio; snowflake peel offs, Stampendous; font is Another Typewriter from dafont.com; bling and ribbon from stash.

We had a phenomenal amount of snow at the beginning of January! As you can probably imagine, there were plenty of opportunities to photograph the snow-covered landscape/our garden, so I selected a few of my absolute favourites for this particular layout. I was originally thinking of making a grid in Picasa, but then I came across sketch 169 by Susan Dupre over at Pencil Lines....

Image credit

...which seemed to incorporate enough photos without looking too cluttered (if you know what I mean). Susan's own layout was also snow-themed, which pretty much cinched it for me! I scraplifted some elements from her original layout, such as the snowflakes and the ribbon, and then adapted the remainder of the sketch to suit the photos and the overall theme of my layout (I was going for an 'Aspen,' 'log cabin' sort of vibe).

As a side note, I should probably add that I am pretty much obsessed with Pencil Lines at the moment! I love the versatility of their sketches and the incredible inspiration that their design team provides each week. And, I'm SO excited about the release of Pencil Lines, a Sketch Book for Scrapbookers...I'm a big fan of the original Scrapbook Page Maps, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Pencil Lines book will provide some new ideas!

Anyhoo, here is the second layout:

White Dotted Swiss cardstock, Bazzill Basics Paper; patterned paper, all Jenni Bowlin Studio; glitter cardstock from stash; Scallop Sentiment punch, Fiskars; font is Another Typewriter from dafont.com; letter stickers include Jenni Bowlin Tiny Circle Alpha Cardstock stickers, My Little Shoebox Mini Alpha Stickers and American Crafts Thickers (Subway).

I just want to reassure everyone that the hat I'm wearing in these photographs is 100% faux fur!

I was so excited to finally be able to wear my scarf and mittens set that I bought in the January sales last year, hence these photos! It turns out that British winters are ordinarily just a bit too mild for such a big, thick scarf...but the 'big freeze' provided the perfect opportunity to wrap up warm! This layout actually came together quite quickly, which is a bit of a rarity for me...I suppose I love the process as much as the satisfaction of finishing the 'end product'...

And, just in case you were wondering how much snow we had at the beginning of January, here is a 'before and after' comparison of the snow we had in our orchard just before Christmas (blogged here) and the snow during the first week of January:

A little known fact about me: meteorology is my guilty little pleasure...Storm Chasers is one of my absolute favourite TV shows (I have a bit of a thing for Reed Timmer) and I check accuweather.com pretty much everyday. Yup, I'm a self-confessed nerd.

Ooh, and if you want to see some more snow photos, check out my 'Snow' Flickr set.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Snowed in = scrap happy

So, after this post about the snow that we had just before Christmas, it started to snow again...with a vengeance. To date, we've had about 15 inches of snow...and we've been snowed in for the past week (as I might have mentioned, we just can't handle snow in our neck of the woods). And, like most self-respecting scrappers with too much time on their hands, I've been getting busy with my glue stick.

* Once my laptop is fixed I'll scan these layouts and upload them to Flickr - despite my best efforts, Picasa and Photobucket keep removing my edits. I hate technology sometimes...

Cardstock in Rouge and Vanilla, American Crafts; Kraft, Bazzill Basics Paper; patterned papers, all Jenni Bowlin Studio; Subway Thickers, American Crafts; Tiny Circle Alphas, Jenni Bowlin Studio; scalloped circles cut using Spellbinders Nestabilities (Classic Scalloped Circles Small) using a Cuttlebug; font, American Typewriter.

'{2010}': Inspired by a layout featured in the December issue of Creating Keepsakes (I left the magazine in London, so my apologies for not providing specific credit!). My resolutions are organised by theme in each of the scalloped circles, e.g. scrapping, cooking, budgeting etc. - I wanted the layout to be simple and to the point.

For my 2010 album, I've challenged myself to use just one core manufacturer a month. I think this idea might require some explanation, so bear with me...(!) I originally started scrapping in 2004, but took a four year hiatus while I completed my BA. After graduating last year, I resurrected my passion for scrapbooking, only to find that a lot had understandably changed! And so...my experimental phase began. I wanted to try everything...every product...every technique...I was (*shudder*) out of control. More importantly, my endless enthusiasm was costing me a small fortune. But, by using one manufacturer a month, I still get to play with new products and pretty paper lines...my spending is just that little bit more sustainable.

Cardstock in Rouge, Vanilla and Coffee, American Crafts; Apron Lace punch, Fiskars; square punch, Woodware; patterned papers, all Jenni Bowlin Studio; Cardstock Alpha Stickers (Red Bookprint), Jenni Bowlin Studio; tiny Alphabet Stickers, My Little Shoebox.

'Believe': My One Little Word layout - I couldn't find the quite right words for my journaling, so I used some inspirational quotes instead.

I should probably mention that this isn't supposed to be restrictive - it's supposed to be cost effective. There are some products that I know I couldn't live without...including:

• The obligatory Thickers.
• Punches. I. LOVE. THEM.
• Any kind of alphabet stickers. My current favourites are Tiny Alphas (Making Memories), Tiny Circle Alphas (JBS) and Alphabet Stickers (My Little Shoebox).
  
• Bling. I have a sneaky suspicion that I was a magpie in a former life.

I've already included all of these on my 2010 layouts so far (I have a couple more to post later on in the week). I can also pretty much guarantee that this list will get a whole lot bigger as the year progresses, because I'm learning what I love to use (and what suits me best). And, if you're anything like me (a chronic perfectionist), having just a few papers to hand - as well as a limited colourway - makes life a lot easier. I also love the consistency of the layouts...which I'm hoping will work well for Project 12 @ Scrapbook & Cards Today.

Cardstock in Stone and Rouge, American Crafts; Dotted Swiss cardstock, Bazzill; butterfly punch, Martha Stewart; patterned paper, Jenni Bowlin Studio; Tiny Alpha stickers, Making Memories; Effervescence punch, Fiskars; adhesive pearls, from stash.

'2009 Facebook statuses': I originally got this idea from Molly Irwin's blog. I was amazed by how my facebook statuses so accurately depict my 2009 - panicking about my dissertation, booking my first driving lesson, taking my last ever French exam, graduating...the sad passing of both my hamster and my dog (I'd had him since I was five years old!). If you haven't done it yet, you can find it here.

I'm curious - how do you go about accumulating your stash? Do you buy impulsively or do you plan ahead? Do you have a favourite manufacturer? I'd love to get some different perspectives!

Happy Wednesday everyone!