Tiddy Jiggy swap

Hiya, I know I've been a bad blogger, been busy moving house and expecting a baby. Will get back into the swings of things soon.

Anyway, to keep me further occupied, I signed up for the tiddy jiggy swap on UKS. This was the final swap using chipboard jigsaws. The whole jigsaw this time is 6x6" after the 8x8" and 12x12" of last year.

I had a great time completing the pieces as usual. I love how I get to try out new techniques and materials on these pieces.

Here's the completed jigsaw, though the middle piece is separate as Philippa was quite happy for us to decorate her pieces in any orientation.

Here's piece no 1. Frances showed us a painting by Klimt, which we recreated on the pieces. I used a load of accent beads - mostly from The Bead Shop in Partick, a great shop which I could easily spend a fortune in.

Piece no 2 is mine, but I'll be completing it when I get my jigsaw back, and see what everyone else has done:).

Piece no 3 had the theme of masks. I love the look of masks, but was stumped for ages with this as I had no supplies specifically related to masks. Eventually it came to me. I cut out a mask shape from card and painted it in liquid pearls. Then I added dots of gold stickles, and added small feathers and gems to each side. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The background is painted, then I used an Autumn Leaves background stamp over the top.

Piece no 4 was ammonites. Again, I loved the theme, but couldn't think of anything I had to fit. I used Fimo to create some fossils, then painted them and added gold touches. The background was painted, and another background stamp used to add subtle texture. The main fossil is sitting on an inked circle of grungeboard.

Piece no 5 was wings. I created a background using digi supplies from Designer Digitals. I then added a bird charm, and a butterfly that was originally on a hair clip.

Piece no 6 was fun, the theme was grungey metal. Philippa said she wouldn't be reassembling the jigsaw so we could decorate the piece however we liked, in any orientation. I'm loving the tensecond studio products just now, so I used one of their embossing plates to emboss some metal with the alphabet, then added black paint before scraping some back off to distress it. On top I painted a grungeboard tag, then added some metal with the word spirit, which I wrote using an embossing tool. I also put some grungeboard inside a bottle cap, with a metal alpha on top, attaching it all with a ball chain through holes at either end of the piece.

Piece no 7 had a great theme. I love the steampunk look. For this piece, I created a digi background, again using supplies from Designer digitals. I then pulled apart one of hubby's old pocket watches. It was a battery powered one, so there was a limit to how many cool cogs there would be, but there were some small metal bits and bobs which I attached to the watch face with diamond glaze. I also stamped a rose on the face, added the cover and the winder separately.

Piece number 8 had a theme of flowers, so I raided my flower tub to fill the piece with them, adding gems too.

Piece number 9 had the theme 'vintage love'. This was a fun piece to do. I started by painting the piece pink, then used another background stamp from the Autumn Leaves set (definitely one of my new favourites) with silver ink. On top I added lace and ribbon with a metal clasp, and a prima gem in the top corner. I found the pin in my stash, and used a chipboard heart which I covered with a piece of card which I also stamped.

I can't wait to get back my own jigsaw, my theme is nature/ texture, so I'm hoping for some touchy-feely pieces!

Happy New Year!

Hi guys,

Hope 2010 is a fabby year for you all, got to be better than 2009 anyway!

So much scrapping!

It seems like I've been thinking about scrapping constantly for most of this month! Not that I'm complaining, lol.

First there was the quarterly sale at Designer Digitals, I love the all-day chat they have on the Saturday, so many fun challenges.

One of the highlights is the 30-minute masterpiece, where we're given 30 minutes to complete a LO. There are some rules, and a few freebies to help. This time there were more rules than usual, but that just added to the fun! We had to create a balanced page, use 3 rectangles, 2 squares, fully justified text, and 2 fasteners on the page. It also had to include a photo taken in October. Here's mine, using a photo I took of Amy at Dean Castle country park recently, all products from Designer Digitals.

The other fascinating chat was with Katie Pertiet, all about blending. I love blending modes, they're among my favourite tools in digi scrapping. Katie talked us through creating a LO using blending modes, not an easy task in a chatroom with close to 300 people! Here's my LO for the challenge, loved the effect, and will definitely be trying it again sometime. Again all supplies are from DD.

Then last weekend was the Wicked Cybercrop on UKScrappers - a full weekend of challenges and classes. For some reason I didn't feel as involved in this cybercrop as I did in previous ones, I hope it was just because I was so busy. The classes certainly looked gorgeous! I did manage a couple of the challenges, even completing one with paper supplies!

This first LO used a sketch, and supplies from Designer Digitals, Kaisercraft and Sweet Shoppe Designs. The second LO was completed for a challenge which required us to create a LO with no photos! This was done about midnight, so I kept it fairly simple.

Besides all these fun events, of course, I've been creating LOs using Kaisercraft digi products. I can't put up many of those yet (a whole new experience for me, ooh, a bit of mystery!), but I can show you one.

I used the Hideaway collection for the first LO, and was so proud to see it on the Kaisercraft blog! I'm so enjoying creating with these collections. They're so different to other digi stuff I use. I think it's because Kaisercraft are a paper company originally, so they feel much more like a paper collection recreated for digi. This is fun, as it means I get to play with the rhinestones and pearls that first drew me to Kaisercraft in the first place!

So, now that I've completed such a long post (at least it had pretty piccies), I must make a mental note to myself - don't..leave..it..so..long..between..posts! Must try harder lol.

Kaisercraft Digi Creative Team

I'm on it. Woohoo! That is all.

Well, of course, that's not all! I'm super excited! Running round the room excited! It's my first time on a creative team, and what lovely talented ladies are on it with me. I was so excited when I got the e-mail to tell me, and we've all been chatting and creating for about a week now, but I'm such a fretter that I didn't mention it till now.

I always loved Kaisercraft's rhinestones and pearls, can't beat a bit of bling! I do miss that sometimes in my digi scrapping, there are products that mimic bling, but it's not the same.

So when I saw the call for the CT, I thought I'd have a go. I've been digiscrapping almost a year now, and felt ready to take the next challenge!

Here's the LO I created using the free Tag This along with a couple of elements from Designer Digitals.

I've been paper scrapping for 2 1/2 years, but I never felt particularly adventurous with it. I liked my pages, but I didn't tend to try exciting new techniques.

It's different with digi, I love trying out new things! I can't exactly say I've found my style yet, can many people? All I can say is that I'm having fun lol. I tend to veer between pages that look like paper ones, and pages that could only be digi. I'm in love with brushes and masks. I love being able to flip a brush, and so find it frustrating when I go back to my stamps and find a flourish reversed from the way I'd like it for my page.

I love the versatility of digi. The way elements can be resized, recoloured, flipped and blended to match to any page. I love that once I've bought a kit the papers are there to stay. No 'saving the best papers for something special'. No faffing over that first cut into a precious piece of patterned paper. With the undo button that's never a problem.

So, I guess I love my digi scrapping. And you know the strangest thing? i always swore I'd never try it. I'd seen too many pages with oversize text floating, or fake-looking ribbons. I just couldn't see the point of using pretend ribbon when I had 10 jars of real ones.

That all changed when I took the Stories in Hand class at Jessica Sprague's site. The whole class was fantastic (and p.s. there's a new free class starting tomorrow if anyone's looking for another challenge), and the last task asked us to create a LO using a template. She provided a video tutorial to talk us through it. I was honestly hooked from that moment!

I love how many friends I've made over the last year, and indeed through scrapping in general. It truly is a wonderful, friendly and welcoming community!

What accompanies your scrapping?

I've always been easily bored, so I like scrapping as a means of multi-tasking my evenings. I can scrap AND watch the telly, I can scrap AND listen to music, I can scrap AND play on the web...oh ok, that last one doesn't really work. As I've said before, I'm also easily distracted.

If I had to choose, I'd listen to music every time. I could have the radio on 24/7, and did for several months after Amy was born. It was great during those night time feeds, to hear the radio presenter and know I wasn't the only person awake at some ungodly hour.

We still leave the radio on in Amy's room overnight, and I know I always liked to go to sleep with it on too. Though I'm starting to wonder if she's overdosed on it as she goes around singing 'B..B..C..Radio 2'.

At the moment, I'm also liking some albums while I scrap, my favourites just now are

1. Abbey Road by the Beatles

2. Gorillaz by Gorillaz,

3.Echoes, silence, patience and grace by the Foo Fighters,

4. Parachutes by Coldplay

5. The best of The Eagles.

So, what does everyone like to do while they scrap? Silence or music, telly or not?

Hot tamale, hot tamale, hot tamale hot hot...

So I spend a lot of time on t'internet. I've already mentioned Facebook a couple of times, I chat on a few forums, and I like using Flickr for my photos.

However, there is one site I go to for pure fun, Weebl's stuff. I first discovered it while I was a PhD student, so of course had plenty of time on my hands. We all become obsessed with it, and it's good to see it's still around, with new, funny videos/tunes.

I'll just include a few of my favourites here. There are loads on the site, though I'll warn you that they may not all be child-friendly. The ones I've listed are, Amy loves them.

Badgers, badgers, badgers - the original and still one of the best, also has a footy variation, and a version using the plush soft toys they now sell from the site. I got one for my sister recently - it's so soft!

Magical Trevor - another of the ones I remember from that time, a cute little tune about a magician.

Tamale - one of my new favourites after we found it a few weeks ago.

You may be singing the tunes for days, or curse me for sending you there, either way it is just a fun site I like to pop onto occasionally.

In praise of mantelpieces

We're thinking of moving house soon, so of course I've been noticing all the things I love about our current home. It's certainly a quirky house, with alcoves, and sloping ceilings etc.

One of my favourite pieces is the large chunky mantelpiece. It's so useful as a surface, and I love to take photos of it through the year.

Today it's got a thank-you card for Amy from one of her friends for going to their birthday party. There's also a printed out digi LO, some Transformers (a story in themselves), as well as a couple of photos of us. Just beside the train is a Drumstick lipbalm, which does taste a bit like the lolly, but is actually really sticky.

I really think a mantelpiece would be on my list of must-haves for our next house, I love how it can be dressed up for any occasion.

Christmas

birthdays

everyday - see those Transformers again?

I know I missed yesterday's prompt, was busy having fun at my crop. I do have an idea for it, but will save it for a day when the prompt doesn't grab me, I liked today's:)