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!

'Tis the season (day 5)

I am officially so excited about Christmas! Last week there was such a transition in the seasons - it suddenly became cold, which was so refreshing after feeling uncomfortably lukewarm for most of October. I dug out my scarves and gloves; I finally decided that our pumpkins needed to be thrown out (it was a massive mistake naming them); I had my first Starbucks Gingerbread Latte in my first Red Cup of the Christmas season; I chose supplies for my 'Journal Your Christmas' album; I watched all of the Christmas decorations whizz past on Oxford Street as I sat on the bus on my way home; we ate stews and baked potatoes full of comfort food goodness; and we rounded off the week with a trip to Harrods to wander around Christmas World, which filled me with so much joy and lots of inspiration!

The Harrods Christmas department was totally overwhelming...I have never seen so many Christmas decorations in one place (apparently there are over 2000 for sale). The decorations that I did manage to take in were beautiful, and I have so many ideas for our Christmas tree this year. I dashed around taking as many pictures on my iPhone as I possibly could (with my favourite bits and pieces shown in the collage above). I do, however, have two absolute favourites that I want to share with you:


I was 100% obsessed with these super-sized lollipops! Don't they remind you of so many different Christmas films? But, they were almost £100 (which I thought was madness). I don't think they would be too difficult to make - perhaps the trickiest part would be finding a suitable 3D 'lollipop' background...


When I saw this Coca Cola ornament I almost collapsed with excitement! For me, Christmas officially starts when I hear 'the holidays are coming' on TV. In fact, Jamie and I joke that we epitomise the 'consumer' generation because we equate Coca Cola so strongly with Christmas! It is also the only time of year that I drink regular Coke (from the traditional glass bottle, of course). So we just had to buy it...and it will look very much at home next to my Starbucks Red Cup ornament from last year! I have a feeling you might be rolling your eyes right about now...

Anyway, I have once again fallen behind in Shimelle's class - life completely got away from me this week and I am only just starting to catch up! In prompt no. 5 - 'learning from your surroundings' - Shimelle talked a lot about the different ways in which a scrapbooker's home can be incorporated into their blog. I love seeing how other scrapbookers/bloggers choose to depict their lives online...some people are completely candid, such as www.kevinandamanda.com (you can pretty much take a tour of their lovely home!), while others are more guarded, showing little snippets which give just enough away for the reader to get a small sense of what that person is like. However, what I love to see - and what I think is particularly revealing - is someone's scrap space/room. Whether it is minimalist or cluttered, organised or an 'organised mess,' what colours that person has chosen and what they have surrounded themselves with for inspiration...it is all so telling about not only what kind of scrapbooker that particular person may be, but about that person in general. So, I thought that for this prompt I would include a picture of my own scrap space, where I feel 100% at home and 100% happy. It may be the kitchen table, but it's my own little corner of the world!



Before I head off, I wanted to say another massive thank you to everyone that has taken the time to read my blog. I have been so unbelievably thrilled to receive such lovely comments...I am SO excited that I have 5 followers...and I have gone from 4 subscribers on Google Reader to 181. To those of you that have left comments, I promise that I will reciprocate in the coming few days as life slows down a little. I haven't been able to locate blogs for a couple of you, so please let me know if you have a private profile...I can't wait to stop by!

Five things (day 3)

Picture credits: Two Peas in a Bucket, Basic Grey, CraftCritique.com, Bo Bunny Blog, www.amazon.co.uk

Well, prompt no. 2 definitely forced me to step out of my comfort zone, but I am so excited about prompt no. 3 (yup, I'm a little behind) because it gives me an opportunity to talk about scrapbooking! Since starting my blog I haven't had much of a chance to upload my layouts because the lighting in the flat is so uncooperative. I have tried to photograph my pages in multiple spots, in different lighting and in artificial light, but it just isn't happening for me at the moment. This is sort of problematic since my blog is called Life & Layouts, but as you soon shall see, I have a plan.

Anyhoo, the image above is a collage of some of the things that have caught my eye recently. By way of explanation:

1. Coveting the Slice Tag Maker Kit - I am a big fan of tools, and I think that this is such an awesome idea for scrapbooking layouts and cards. If money was no object I would snap this up in an instant (along with the Slice Tag Maker Design Card and these sparkly rims), but sadly I have put myself on a strict budget for the time being. It is definitely on my Christmas list though.
2. Too cute! The Basic Grey Nook & Pantry collection - Cooking themes are cropping up all over the place at the moment (Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird and October Afternoon's Farm Fresh come to mind). I particularly love this line because the colours are so very pretty and versatile, but mostly because of the 'Cupcakes' patterned paper, which looks good enough to eat.
   
3. Saving up for the Silhouette Digital Cutting Tool - Wow. This actually makes me giddy with excitement every time I read about it. Just the sheer amount of things that this machine can do is incredible...
4. In my shopping basket: the Bo Bunny Kitchen Spice collection - I love the contrast of the rich autumnal colours of this line against the more delicate pinks and blues. And, because November is the dreaded month of essay-writing (7000 words), I have no time to do the accompanying scrapbook pages for each prompt. So, I was thinking instead that once I have submitted my essays at the beginning of December I would celebrate by making a Blogging for Scrapbookers mini book using this collection, which I have decided sort of matches my Blogger template.
5. Big investment: Canon LiDE 200 Scanner -This blew my budget a little bit (or a lot) but I deemed it a necessity for two reasons. 1) I have hundreds of photos from 'back in the day' when you got your camera film printed which I want to archive/back-up and use for some projects that I have planned for next month. 2) No matter how hard I try, I'm never going to have the right light to photograph my layouts. A scanner is the next best thing, and I have it on good authority that the included software has a stitching facility...here's hoping...(it arrives next week).

In other news, I took a day off from reading and note-taking to go to the Craft Barn Mini Craft Fest today. The demonstrations were very inspiring - I had to stop myself from buying up a whole load of Dreamweaver stencils and embossing pastes after watching Carol and Cheryl, and I got so many ideas from watching Carole Cann's demonstration using Glimmer Mists. Sticking to the budget theme, I tried to be as restrained as possible in my purchases:

• Glimmer Mist Spring Limited Edition in Dew Drop
• Distress Ink pad in Black Soot
• Cosmic Shimmer Aurora Embossing Powder in Arctic Black
• Cosmic Shimmer Lustre Embossing Powder in Lapis Pearl
• Inkadinkado clear stamp set (Chandeliers)
• A6 pack of white gloss card

And I can't wait to try them out! Tomorrow is another day of reading, catching up on some more of Shimelle's prompts if there's time, and eating some more of these:


As a reward for my hard work, I am very tempted to get a Starbucks Gingerbread Latte...it seems so appropriate in these cold temperatures!

Wrap up warm and have a good weekend!

All Hallows' Eve

I'm so sad that Halloween is over! Yesterday was a flurry of activity - I pottered around in the morning making the cinnamon cream cheese icing for my yummy pumpkin cupcakes (inspired by the very talented Shimelle) and spent some time fiddling around with yet another Halloween project. In the afternoon my Mum and I met up for the most incredible Serendipity-style ice cream sundaes at Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly (which you can see above), where we also wanted to look at the beautiful Christmas decorations that they already have on display. Afterwards we went for a quick wander around the Harrods Pet Kingdom, where we saw some adorable Shih Tzu and Chihuahua puppies! It was especially sad for us because our 17 year old Shih Tzu died earlier this year, and these puppies bore an uncanny resemblance to him when he was just a little puppy. In the evening Jamie and I finally got around to carving our pumpkins after hauling them back from the Whole Foods Market in Camden on Friday...the lack of a car is a definite disadvantage in London. Anyhoo, this is the result:

From the left: Country 'Pumpkin' (designed and named by Jamie), Winifred (named after my favourite of the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus), Count 'Pump-cula' (also designed and named by Jamie), and the little guy in the front is called Casper (as in the ghost), because he just looks so happy.

Jamie carved all but the one in the middle, which I very ambitiously started at 8pm and immediately regretted five minutes later. I don't think I scooped out the pulp properly, and the pumpkin was way too thick to carve using a little precision saw that I found in Waitrose. So Jamie heroically stepped in and we pushed and pulled and tugged until it was eventually finished! Once we got the tea lights inside I was so glad that we perserved because they all looked so awesome lined up below our Halloween display. In honour of Halloween we watched Hocus Pocus whilst eating A LOT of junk food - by the time we started watching Interview with a Vampire I was definitely in a sugar-induced coma, which is probably a good thing because the bits of the film that I saw were just a little creepy...

Before settling down to gorge ourselves we nipped out for a few minutes to (randomly) watch the BT Tower. Over the past couple of days it has been beautifully lit up - complete with Batman-esque spotlights - and every time I have walked past it at night I have unsuccessfully tried to photograph it. During one of my attempts last night, a guy walking past us mysteriously said to stand under the Tower at 8.50pm, so Jamie and I interrupted our pumpkin carving and dutifully stood underneath it. And this is what we saw:

It turns out that yesterday marked 1000 days until the start of the 2012 Olympics in London, and to celebrate the BT Tower got a makeover and a very impressive fireworks display. It was so cool to watch, but sad that it hadn't been particularly well advertised - there were only a handful of people there. I should also thank Jamie for taking the photos (I still had serious camera shake despite his best efforts to change all of the settings on my camera).

And, finally, a couple of the Halloween projects that I have been working on this week:

Again, not ideal photos! But I'm so pleased with the end result. I got the idea for these hanging panels from the Imaginisce Idea Gallery (click on Spooky Town for some more Halloween ideas). I L-O-V-E Imaginisce papers - although I'm not always initially attracted to the designs, the heavyweight cardstock and the 'glossy spot UV accents' (as described by the Craft Emporium) add so much dimension to whatever it is they are used for. For this particular project, I used the Boo Buttons, Bestitched, Boo Whooo?, Fraidy Cat and Trick or Treat papers - all from the Craft Emporium - with some Bazzill cardstock for each background. The accents are all cut out from the patterned papers and attached with foam pads. I used repositionable glue dots for the photos in case I want to switch the photos next year. For the corners, I used my Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper and to make the holes for the ribbon I used my Crop-A-Dile Big Bite (both purchased from the Craft Barn).

For this quick and easy project, I used the Pink Paislee Twilight collection, also from the Craft Emporium. I found this "spooky" card in the 'Pink Projects' section of the Pink Paislee website, but it is also worth checking out their blog, which is showcasing some really amazing ideas at the moment. This card was literally so easy to make - I varied the design just a little bit, using two pieces of ric rac from my stash instead of the suggested twine, and I cut out the skull and the crow (along with the nested circles) using my Slice machine and the Spook Alley design card (purchased from the Craft Barn).

Well, that pretty much sums up our All Hallows' Eve! Today was spent watching Saturday's X Factor on Sky Plus with a Starbucks Hazelnut Hot Chocolate, which seemed appropriate for such a miserable day. I couldn't believe how many leaves covered the roads and pavement on my way to the gym this evening - it's amazing how quickly the season changes in London!

Hints of Autumn....

October is my absolute favourite month of the year, so it is appropriate that my first ever blog post is dedicated to all things autumnal! 'Life and Layouts' is sort of an experiment for me. After a four year hiatus, I finally have a bit more time to devote to scrapbooking and general crafts, and as I slowly resurrected my hobby over the summer of this year, I literally could not believe how scrapbooking has evolved since I started back in 2004. I wanted to become a small part of the scrapping community that has developed over the past few years - both in the UK and worldwide - and it seemed that the obvious way to become involved was to showcase some of my creations online. So, this blog is primarily for all things crafty, but, since scrapbooking is all about preserving memories, I am pretty sure that elements of my own life will gradually filter through as well.

At the moment I am trying to figure out how everything on Blogger works (I'm not quite a technophobe, but I do get easily confused...) so for today's post I have uploaded an autumnal collage that I created on Picasa. I am ordinarily based in London, but last weekend I popped home for a family birthday, which provided the ideal opportunity to capture some seasonal magic! All but the middle picture were taken in my parents' garden, whilst the shot of the pumpkins was taken at Secretts Farm Shop (which is a fantastic find if you live in Surrey). I edited the photos using my new latest online obsession, Picnik, and then uploaded the photos to Picasa. I have since used the collage to create a 'colourful' Autumn-themed decoration for the living room, so check back soon for the result!