Real life ...

... has a habit of getting in the way!

I've just realised that I haven't blogged for a while, and that's mainly because I've not done much crafting either.  As the title says, real life gets in the way ...

A combination of work, family stuff, gardening (it's sprinng and my allotment needs attention), voluntary commitments and a serious leak in the bathroom (we've put in an insurance claim as it looks like it might be a big job) have left me little time for crafting.  And the little I have done has either not been very noteworthy or cannot be revealed yet (Mothers Day card).  I have done some stitching on my orang-utans but not enough to make it worthwhile showing an updated photo yet.

At least I have my monthly crop coming up this weekend, so I may have a LO or two to show after that, but I just need to find the time to sort out my stash and decide what to take with me ...

Another challenge

As well as weekly challenges, the UKScrappers website also hosts monthly challenges.  The challenge this month was to follow a sketch and to use a monochrome palette (not necessarily black & white, simply shades of one colour, in my case green).  The sketch is here -

And here is my take on it ...

The plain green strips are for my journalling, but as I want to add full name, place of birth etc, I'm adding that after these photos - don't want to publish sensitive info on the internet for all to see!  As you can see, i changed the sketch slightly but kept to the main idea of it.  For a while now I have wanted to start a "Book of Me", so now I have started it, and this will be the first page.

As promised ...

... here is the LO I completed yesterday, using one of my new stamps and my new ink and applicator -

I stamped the Paris collage image onto the back of a piece of the same bazill cardstock that I used to matt the photos (I had to use the back as the textured front side wouldn't take the image well enough).  The journalling card was too bright as it was so I inked it using the same ink as used for the satmp (applied with my new applicator tool), this dulled the colours slightly as well as bringing the colour-scheme together.  I also inked the edges of the photo matt and the photos, to fully co-ordiante the colour-scheme.  The brown hearts are Maya Road chipboard shapes, inked and then coated with Matte Accents.

I've only recently started using inks for other things than stamping - a whole new world of colour is opening up to me now :-)

New stash

Thanks to our endowment company making a complete hash of things and sending a cheque by way of apology, I found myself with an extra £50 to spend so decided to treat myself to some Tim Holtz stamps; I've been hankering after these for ages but always thought they were a little too expensive (there was no way I was just going to buy ONE set, was there?!).

Recently I have also bought some new ink pads and an ink applicator so I spent a bit of this afternoon playing around, trying out some of the new stamps and experimenting with direct-to-paper techniques - great fun!

I also managed to find time to produce a couple of LOs.  My favourite is another one using photos from our Paris trip last year.  I can't show a photo just yet as there are a couple of elements that aren't quite complete (waiting for some matte accents glaze to dry) but I hope to complete it and take a photo tomorrow.

My changing style

I was looking back through some old layouts the other day and found the first 12x12 LO I ever did.  I was quite surprised; it seemed very different to the latest LOs I've created and I didn't realise my style had changed so much.

A bit of background - the first scrapbooking I ever did was at 8x8 size as I found the sheer size of a 12x12 page too daunting.  As most of my 8x8 scrapping is in the form of a family photo album, I generally try to fit in as many photos as possible and this affected my style.  I eventually started to try a few 12x12 LOs  and this is the first one I ever did -

At the time I remember feeling very pleased with it, but now I look at it and find it very simplistic and formulaic, too symetrical and rather boring.

Since then I've experimented more with different styles and methods.  Challenges on the UKS website, classes and workshops at my local crop, and LOs I've seen on websites and blogs, have all helped me to develop a style I'm comfortable with.  I'm a little freer with design, less afraid of "blank space", a little more creative, and less scared of my own handwriting (I used to always use computer printed journalling as I dislike my own writing, but I now find the printed journalling a little impersonal and prefer my own writing, despite its imperfections).

I am sure that my style will continue to change and develop.  But I thought it would be interesting to contrast my first ever 12x12 LO with a more recent one.  This one was not part of a challenge or a class or workshop and wasn't following a sketch, it was merely using some photos I wanted to scrap and using some materials I wanted to use.  I know it would have looked very different if I'd completed it 3 or 4 years ago ...