Here comes Santa Claus

This layout comes from another kit I have had along time....I think its Cosmo Cricket and has a distinctive vintage feel. I am starting to use all those photos I have of the children taken on my old camera...before digital and this one is not great but I still want to use it. Its not helped as I have scanned and enlarged it, but now the colours are more subtle it works ok with these papers. It also gave me the chance to use some Pointsettia Spellbinders dies that I had brought and not used last year to make the flower. There were some great rub-ons in the kit and I just added some flourishs with a Sizzix die and the corners are a EK Success punch.

Totalpapercrafts Dec Kit 2

I was asked by Karen to design the 2nd kit for December using the fab papers and chipboard die cuts from Cosmo Crickets range 'Jolly By Golly'. I wanted to use some photos of a holiday I took with friends in Austria just before Christmas 2007 so I used a the snowy theme as against another Christmas one, although there are both on the chipboard sheets. I used Safmat for the journaling, a great product if you like to type your journaling on the computer and then you just peel the backing off and stick down onto some paper and as its transparent you dont see it...I have been using it alot and would recomend it.

This second layout is made from the papers etc I had left over from the first layout....makes the kit great value for money. All I added was some more plain cardstock and for the girls who have brought the kit I have used a 7x5 sized photo in both layouts but there is room for you to use 2 smaller 6x4 photos.

Cosmo Cricket Everafter

Back to a range of fab fab papers from Cosmo Cricket...super soft subtle colours which work great for wedding/hertiage pages. I had this papers left over...and I am trying to use papers up before moving on to something else....it wont last, lol! I used two pieces of papers stuck down onto my circut mat and then cut the shape out.

Products used:

Cosmo Cricket Everafter papers

Stampin'Up! Pretties kit

Flowers from stash

Martha Stewart Doily punch
Flower punch
Cats eye charcoal ink pad
Basic Grey rub ons
Accent Essentials cricut cartridge
Prima flourishes

I also wanted to mention that the Special Offer from Stampin'Up! this month is the 12x12 designer series papers, buy 3 and get 1 free. Also if you have been thinking of becoming a demonstrator and want to sign up under me there is a Scrapbooking starter kit for the first time at £99.00, instead of the usual cardmaking one. Email me for details...jackiedasilva@talktalk.net

Have a great weekend

Embossing

Forgot I have two other layouts from the retreat to post. Todays one involves heat embossing acetate. Wehad an array of stamps to choose from and with a Versamark ink pad we stamped the image onto the acetate and the with different colour embossing powders heat set the mbossing powder with a heat gun. Then we could either leave them with a clear background or colour the backs. You can use embossing powders again or paint, pens etc whatever sticks to acetate. Fun class and great to mess about with a technique rather than concentrate on a layout. That said I am a huge Cosmo Cricket fan anyhow so I was always going to love this page. I also chanced my luck and embossed on the photograph....yikes!! it does work but you have to be careful to not hold the heat gun to close or it will damage the photo and if I did it again I would wipe my photo with an anti-static pad before I stamped and embossed. They are great little pads of powder, almost like talc, that clean the surface of your photo or card and dry any marks left by your fingers so the powder does not stick to where it is not supposed to be. If I look close I can see some specks of powder but I can live with it on this page...lol. Title has been done with American Craft chipboard thickers and the bling is from a pack of Prima flourishes. Everything we used should still be available from Mel and Jill at A trip down memory lane web site here The embossing powders we used were the new American craft Zing powder...fab colours with a pearl lustre!

Have a great weekend, hopefully the weather will hold!!

Happily Everafter

I just had some finishing off to do on this page from my retreat...which I managed to do last night. This layout was a class with Anna Bowkis...I love her work and am always admiring her layouts on her blog. We used Cosmo Cricket Happily everafter papers & stickers...I think the recent lines of Cosmo Cricket are some of the best they have produced and along with My Minds Eye and Basic Grey one of my favourite scrapbook companys. I love the colours of this range, beautifully muted greys and soft lemons and orange...definitely made for wedding layouts whether heritage or modern. The flowers were hand made, easily done by cutting out circles of cardstock and distressing them with either scissors or a distressing tool, inking the edges and scrunching up the paper. The repeat again with a smaller sized circle and I added some of the lace that was leftover and brads....voila!! handmade flowers.

Cosmo Cricket ...Family

This is a birthday present I made for my best friend Kerry who now lives in Australia...it was her birthday on Monday but I did not want to post this before I knew she had received it.

I made it from a kit by Cosmo Cricket Dutch girl...I love this range has to be one of my favourites. I made it with photos of her and hubby kevin plus photos of their wonderful daughters Lauren and Holly. They have been caught up in all the fires in melbourne but thank god they are safe and their house is ok...although she did email me last night and they have had an earthquake!! The set comprises 5 chipboard rectangles which you cover with cardstock and lace together with ribbons and then add diecuts. Its not the easiest thing to photograph so I have taken several shots.

dutch girls layouts

These are the layouts from this weeks class. I still have some kits left for £9.00 if you are interested. The kits includes 4 patterned cardstock, 4 sheets of plain cardstock, 1 precut circle, double sheet of die cuts, whole pack of die cut alphabets in white card, ribbon and snaps as well as full instructions for both the single and the double layout.

Cosmo Cricket Dutch Girl

For the girls at this weeks crop, here are the papers we are using for a single and a double layout. You will need for the double layout, 1 6x4 portrait, 1 6x4 landscape which can have some of the right hand side cut off as it is going to be split over the two pages, so you dont want it going through somebodys face!! 1 6x4 landscape that can be cropped to about 5x4 and 2 3x21/2 photos(I had 1 landscape 1 portrait). For the single you need just one 6x4 or 7x5 portrait photo, if you dont have a coloured photo a black and white one would be fine. I have used photos my sons trip to Rome for the double and a photo of my hubby for the single, it has the title Love but you can change that to anything you want and replace the heart dies with something else from the huge sheet you are getting in this kit. You are also getting a beautiful pack of thin white cardstock alphabets, but I am getting to much glare from the wrapper so I have taken it off the photo.

I will post the layouts thursday as usual.

Enjoy the weekend....fab weather for once!!