Lake District Scrapbook Pages !

Hello there ! 
Well, I have a good reason this time for my lack of posts - the traditional week away with my family to the Lakes ! We go every year and just love it and I managed to take some lovely photos this year as I treated myself to a gorgeous new camera about a month ago so had lots of fun experimenting with it ! 
That is not what I have to show you today though - I haven't been back long enough to craft and have only just cleared the enormous pile of washing and ironing !!! A few years ago when I began crafting I was a scrapbooker and looking back at what I produced in those days is quite interesting ! I have always worked in a style which uses soft colours and edges towards vintage and I love nature so that theme is always a strong feature. What always surprises me is how your style develops and of course you learn new techniques and inevitably do become a better crafter ! 
These pages that follow, were done in 2008 after our holiday ( quite a wet one I seem to recall with sunny spells ! ) and I thought I would share them with you to show how you can make very simple scrapbook  pages using embellishments that are downloads from the net to enhance your photos .

I probably wouldn't produce anything like this now as my style has moved on with current trends and they are very basic layouts but they were very inexpensive to produce and capture the essence of a lovely holiday. 

Rosie and I are big fans of all the beautifully illustrated Beatrix Potter children's books and along with a colour theme of greens and blues ( for the lakes and fells ) I used the little characters from her books to link the pages of the scrapbook. I also added some of her quotes and drawings  (this is a  personal scrapbook - remember that if you intend to reproduce and then sell on, that there are copyright laws ! )

I have use designer papers but if you look closely you will see that I have overstamped these. I also printed some of the images onto vellum just to add interest.

Thankfully my photography has improved slightly too in the last four years ( this may be due to the new camera though !!! ), but it's nice to look back on some lovely memories ! 

The stunning scenery of the Lakes is very hard to beat but it's nice to make up a scrapbook of your holiday snaps - so much nicer that just putting them into a photo album and choosing a theme makes the album " flow " when you look through along with a colour theme that links the pages too ! 

Hope you have enjoyed my little trip down memory lane and thank you for taking the time to visit !

Happy crafting ! Hugs Jane x

Framed Photograph !

Hello ! It seems that getting back into the crafting groove has proved a little harder than I first thought ! It's not that I haven't been crafting or teaching; I have just struggled to complete anything - until now !!! Beginning lots of projects at the same time has always been my downfall as I completely loose the plot and then nothing gets done ! 
The project I have managed to finish however, is actually a decorated frame for a wedding photo which is a first anniversary gift for a very special couple who's wedding we attended last year in Scotland. I don't have permission to publish the photo so I have substituted one of my lovely daughter and her handsome boyfriend instead - the colours of the flowers were to compliment the wedding photo but look equally good with this photo taken at Burford House Gardens near Tenbury Wells.

The frame measures around 35 x 45 cms so I printed the photo large onto A4. The wedding was in the Spring and the flowers were divine - all spring bulbs in pale yellow and greens which were very highly scented so I went with that colour theme just adding some butterflies stamped in grey to give an accent to the scheme (this picked up the black of the grooms jacket too).

Here is a little more detail :

The flowers are die cut and layered and the heart has been embossed in white. The little pearls are the exact colour that the brides attendants wore - such a pretty colour. The heart echoed the sweetheart bodice shape of the bride's gown - I tried to link everything together !

There are two stamped layers in a pale stone and olive green and everything else sits on top of the stamping - I have also added in some die cut scrolls and the lovely little butterflies were stamped and then trimmed out.

It would have been very easy to go over the top with this project as I had lots of space to play with but I think that less is more here - after all the object is to enhance the photo , not to overwhelm it !

This kind of project is a part of my business which I am in the process of developing ; it's just a stage on from a wedding album for those who don't want a fully fledged scrapbook. Quotes and other options are available on request via the e-mail address on my profile above ; I would be very happy to discuss your requirements !

Thank you to all my lovely visitors for still continuing to check out my blog for postings and I'm so sorry they have been rather sporadic ! Must try harder C- !!!!!!!

Hugs Jane x