Pockets with Pizzazz

Sorry folks, who knew it was Wednesday already !!!

I've been busy preparing my own embellishments en masse these past few days....I set aside a couple of hours and get to work with some of my stamps, punches and die cut shapes.

Arrows are a great favourite of mine and work perfectly with the pocket pages. I just use up my scraps of card stock. These arrows are from Spellbinders and are tiny, so take up a very small amount of card. I even used funky foam to make some and they worked perfectly well too! Cork worked but its very delicate....

With the cork, I used one of DCWV's cork stack, 15 sheets of 6x6" cork, absolutely brilliant for stamping on. I used a combination of Technique Tuesdays Ali Edwards stamps and some new Kaisercraft stamps to cover the 6x6" sheet, look how many stamps I managed to get out of one sheet!!!! I then either punched or cut by hand around the image - it was very easy, and I love the results!

Next time I'll show you some more homemade embellishments - y'can never have enough !!!

Week 23

Not a huge amount happening this week, I think I'm starting to like the ratio of photos and cards now, although I'm sure I will have weeks where I am over-run by photos, and will struggle to fit any cards in! I think I'm just going to have to accept I'm not into plain & simple, although I love that style too !

Week 24

The weather was actually warm enough to have a water session in the garden, luckily I had my camera handy. We have a new puppy addition for one of the boys in Canada, a gorgeous little French Bulldog called Bali, named after their travels. The kittens are growing up quickly and will soon become a nuisance I'm sure!

Hopefully the editor can now sit down with a glass of wine, instead of her morning coffee to read the post - sorry ED xx

Hoping you get some inspiration from this weeks pages - I'd best start getting up to date with the next lot - (yes, even we fall behind some times!)

Pockets with Pizzazz

My GO-TO pile of embellishments.....every now and then I spend a couple of hours sorting out some home made embellishments. This pile is made up of stamps that I stamp out onto matte photo paper and punch out, ready for adding to my pages. I find it so much easier to do this en-masse, rather than individual times for each page. I'm getting to know which ones I use the most and can easily stamp more of those.
I have an article in the Scrap365 Oct/Nov issue out on the 12 Sept with more of my homemade embellishments. Most of them are very basic and easy to do, I think sometimes we just lose inspiration or more likely forget what we have available in our own mountains of stash !

 Week 21

Week 21 consisted mostly of torrential rain & walkies, with perhaps a holiday for someone and lots of healthy food ! I love that FaceBook allows you to peek into your children's lives, although sometimes I wish I hadn't, they have waaaayyyyy more fun than me !

Week 22

Quite a relaxing week for a change, kids relaxing and not listening to me - nothing new there ! Cat had kittens and another festival for one of children - (although at 25 are they still classed as children?). Loved Tom's picture of his alarm calls to get up for a new job !!

That's all folks.............hope to see you in a fortnight and look out for the PWP feature in the Oct/Nov feature of Scrap365....if you want to see more PWP in the magazine, there are lots of other fabulous designers to see and inspire you, leave a message for the editor.....WE WANT MORE !!!

Pockets with Pizzazz

Good Morning, welcome to Pockets with Pizzazz once again....To be honest I've been really, really busy with life these past few weeks and have struggled to find time to get up to date......but I have managed, mainly due to a 12hr crop I attended the other weekend. It's not that I don't want to do it, I love doing it, life just gets in the way sometime!
I've been reading more & more on FB groups, that people have all the stash, but can't start. I think people seem to have way too high expectations of themselves and expect a perfect page straight away, when I look back at my first pages - I cringe.....it takes time to find your style, everybody is different. If you come from a scrapbook background, you may prefer to change your style completely....I can't believe I don't ink anything or distress !!!! Its as plain or as busy as you want it, colourful or serene as you want, its your album, your memories, your time ! But once you start, be warned it is addictive....

Week 19:

A fun crop, some lovely walks - (its about time the weather improved)....and I love finding photos the children have taken on my phone - do you?

Week 20:

Some more lovely weather, we actually got to spend time in the garden. I attempted a challenge on one of the FB groups and made my week card, I used one of the Tim Holtz Sizzix dies, (I'd just got it in one of their mega sales). I overlapped photos, and cut one in half to spread across two pockets.

Pockets With Pizzazz

With this weeks Pockets with Pizzazz I had no new cards or embellishments to use, I just had my own stash (Some weeks I get to play with new stuff the editor gets given from manufacturers). So its a mix of all sorts, I tend to file my cards by colours as that's the way I scrap. I decided also that the box I use to control my cards and embellishments really was a bit too big and getting heavy, so I decided to use some power tools and cut it into 2/3rds, painted it and now its far more manageable (although still full!)

Before:

After:

It would be interesting to find out how you store all your supplies, I know a lot of people have the Ikea trolley, how does that work if you scrap away from home, or do most of you only scrap at home?

 Washi storage is the other problem, which is the best way? 

Now on with Week 17:

And Week 18:

Pockets with Prima Pizzazz

Along with other members of the Scrap365 design team, for this month, we have been very privileged to have been able to use the new PRIMA ranges just released.

I chose the Insta-Scraps by Leeza Gibbons (of course!)....a whole mix of wonderful colours that suit Spring & Summer best (IMHO). Its a little bit girly but that's not a bad thing, the beauty with Pocket Pages I think, is that because all the pockets are separate you can really mix up the colours and at the end of the day, I don't think the boys really mind having a bit of pink in there!

I didn't have any 6x4" cards, but found that within all the cards I have already acquired, from many different companies, there were lots of complimentary colours that I was able to use!

I had some bare wood PRIMA ATC cards too. I used my Ranger Tim Holtz distress inks to colour the wood to match the colours in the cards, I added a sticker and a Prima crochet icon, a few stamps, and it was finished. I like that fact you don't have to spend a huge amount of time on the Pocket Pages individually, unless of course you want to!

Week 15

Mostly cards & generous amounts of stickers on these pages

Week 16

More cards, stickers & some overlays on this week. I often add a 3x4" card to a 6x4" card to spice it up a little !

The products I had use of are here:

Scrap Around the World - Guest Team

“ This is no ordinary month at Scrap Around the World.  9 out of 10 of the prizes awarded will be going to past Winners, Features or Finalists (those featured on their legendary Wall of Fame in the past year) & one prize will be awarded to a totally NEW winner {someone who has never featured on their Wall of Fame before}.  This is so that TEN EPIC WINNERS can be selected as the TOP TEN PLAYERS of 2013/14 at Scrap Around The World! 

This will be a yearly competition held at this fantastic challenge blog &I am honoured to be a part of this inaugural event.  Please support Helen & her team at SATW by playing along this month.  There are 10 prizes, each valued at approximately $100 up for grabs, including free postage as usual, so it is so worth it, plus the inspiration is amazing!”

Here was my entry for the Scrap365 Guest Design team, a very rare photo of my family taken many years ago !

http://scraparoundtheworld.blogspot.co.uk/ is where you'll find all the info and loads of inspiration....its going to be big, so get working on your projects now !!!

Pocket with Pizzazz

Well what can I say? What a fantastic response to last weeks Pockets with Pizzazz, the post nearly went Viral!  I think there must now be a national shortage of Hama beads and some very upset children. Obviously making your own embellishments is something you are all very interested in. I'm working on a few new & revitalized methods at the moment, so hopefully I will have something to show you all in the very near future!

I must confess to a disaster with the hama beads, I purchased some own brand from Hobby Craft and using the prescribed method attempted to melt them - all I got were doughnuts, every time on different temperatures.....so I went back and got the Hama beads and placed them and some of HC own brand in a tray and the result was this:

I think you can tell which is which, perhaps some of you have had success and can let us know your secret !

Week 13

Lots of yellow this week with it being Mothers day and spring...A lovely card from my daughter to add too ! (She's got a very good sense of humour!) Its quite photo heavy this week but I found some new Page Protectors from Becky Higgins that use five 6x4" slots, this one portrait, but they do landscape too, so I sadly was pretty excited about that!

Week 14

I spotted on a FB group in Australia some pictures of the new Bo Bunny Modern Miss line....I fell in love instantly and managed to source it in the UK, so this weeks post is using mostly Modern Miss. I loved the distressed faded style and big water colour type cards, its not everybodies cup of tea, but it certainly is mine. I don't know about you, but I love including my children that are no longer living at home in my Pocket Pages, FB has become a brilliant source for getting photos of them and when I include them it feels like they're still here, even though they could be thousands of miles away. Do you include your 'left home' children still, it would be nice to hear from you all.

I hadn't realized it was Wednesday quite so soon again after the previous post, I've been too busy doing my Pocket Pages. Perhaps I could persuade the editor to run a little competition, with a little prize....I'll work on it for next time.

Elaine x