Come and See!

Hello all,

I skipped a couple of challenges in terms of posting here, but this week's (P)Inspirational Challenge has me back firing on all cylinders ;)

This is our challenge picture:

And this is my project! This is our little one, finding a sweet treat in her shoe from Sinterklaas (a Dutch tradition similar to Santa) last year.

A lot more colour than in the picture, but what I took from it is the book background, hearts, red and metallic. I sanded a piece of silver metallic card to make it look aged and used it to mat my pictures. A lot of scraps, bits and pieces used up; very satisfying! I will journal in white on the stars paper, but didn't manage to do it al in time. Hope you like it and are inspired to join us; as usual you have two weeks to play!

Challenges:

* Deep Ocean Challenges (Inspired by a Song/Movie) The song that inspired me was "O kom er eens kijken", a Dutch Sinterklaas song (I used it as a title) 

* Try it on Tuesdays (Home Sweet Home) Pictures are taken at home, of a family tradition

* Unicorn Challenges (Anything Goes)

* Shopping our Stash (Autumn Colour Palette) 

* Get Creative Challenges (Holidays) Pictures are taken at the holiday of Sinterklaas 

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Measuring Up

Hello everyone,

Home with a stomach flu today, so I'd better make this short. A new challenge picture is up for (P)Inspirational Challenges:

I loved the patchwork woodgrain paper, thought this was an ideal time to actually cut into it!

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Time Flying Past

Hello all,

You wonder what happened to my Tuesday (P)Inspirational Post? Yeah, me too, seems time has played tricks on me and make me forget things. Currently in beautiful Padua, Italy, attending a work conference and with all the preparations and flights totally forgot about my post! Well, better late than never, eh? 

So, without further ado, the inspirational pic for the coming two (well, 1.5 now) weeks is:

Lovely colours, flowers, dots. stripes, a lot of potential here! This is my take:

I have had the background paper in my stash for quite some time and really wanted to finally use it forever but wanted to do it 'justice'. So pretty! So to showcase it, I used the full sheet as my starting point. I love the outcome and so another beautiful paper finally goes into my album! This LO is about me turning 40, the photo was taken on my birthday too.

Challenges:

* Lasting Memories (Polka Dots) 30/9

* Kreative Inkauf (Anything but a Card) 14/9

* Sparkles Challenge (Birthday) 14/9

* Moving Along with the Times (Add a Number) 13/9

* Making Memories (AG or Use the Mood Board) 30/9

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Sleep Evolution

Good morning all!

Another fortnight gone, another (P)Inspirational Challenge! This is our challenge image this time:

Awww, how sweet! I was inspired by the 3 sleeping beauties and the colour scheme and decided to scrap three pictures of our girl to show her sleeping 'progress' over time. She started out taking her naps in the living room, but it turned out it was too noisy for her and she preferred to sleep upstairs in her cot. After six months the graduated to her own bedroom and bed. She has always been a very good sleeper, naps are important to keep her a happy girl, even now. 

The challenge sponsors this time are 

 and

Come on and join the fun! 

Challenges:

* Use Your Stuff (For the Love of Children)

* Moo Mania (Banners & Garlands)

* Simon Says Stamp (For a Child)

* Hiding in My Craftroom (Super Scraps Saturday)

* Counterfit Kit Challenge (Phrase Stickers) 31/8

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Water Ballet

Good morning!

Well, my vacation is officially over, I've been back at work for over a week already! We had a great time, mostly spent at home playing in our new garden with the little lass, great times!

However, time goes on and it's time for another (P)inspirational Challenge. Here is our inspirational picture this time:

I wanted to scrap some pictures from our anniversary trip this year, so I didn't go with the literal interpretation of ice creams. Instead, I used the colour scheme as a starting point. I also mixed in some gold, which I surprised myself with as I find it difficult to use metallic elements on my scrapbook pages.

It would be fun if you could play along with our challenge this fortnight, there is a prize for the random winner as well! This time it's Lemon Shortbread and Imagine That! Digistamps, so plenty of reasons to upload your projects!

Challenges:

* Little C's Creations (The Colour Purple)

* Cards & More (Dots, Dots, Dots)

* C.R.A.F.T. Challenge (Summer)

* 2 Sisters on the Blog (Anything Goes)

* Creatalicious (Anything Goes with Optional Stars)

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Bike Routine

Hello everyone,

I'm thoroughly enjoying my vacation at home, getting lots of crafting and film watching in! So far we've seen Wonder Woman and Spiderman Homecoming in the cinema, both of which were great, and some films at home too. During the home films, I was crafting up a storm, including the LO for this week's challenge @ (P)Inspirational Challenges. We are using this inspirational picture this fortnight:

I bet you expect a wintery layout, yes? Actually, I went a different route, here's my make:

I started with the tree paper, which is admittedly part of a Christmas paper line. However, the paper made me think of our recent biking trips in the woods near our house, so I decided to keep the red and green colour scheme but use summery pictures instead. 

From the picture, I took the colour scheme, trees, transport and the circles in the background (they reminded me a little bit of snow). What do you think, too Christmassy? I think I pulled it off!

It would be great if you could join in the fun and play along with our challenge, you have two weeks to add your project! Sponsors this week are ALL DRESSED UP and ELISABETH BELL DESIGNS, both offering digital images for the winners.

Challenges:

* Challenge Yourself (Handwritten Journaling)
* Lasting Memories (Outdoor Adventures)
* Make My Monday (Travel or Vacation)
* Come and Get It (Use 2 or more Designer Papers)
* Your Scrapbook Place (Summer Fun)

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Look out, Dinos!

Hello all,

Finally, my holiday has begun! Three weeks of (mostly) work-free time to spend as we wish! I bet there's going to be a couple of crafting sessions, some cinema trips and family visits and some great days out with husband and daughter. 

Talking about great days out, in the beginning of June we went to the zoo for the first time with our girl. She loved the dinosaur park and often asks to see those particular photos, so she can point them out and call out: DINOS! Somehow our inspirational picture reminded me of that trip:

Lovely woodgrain, pastel colours, the I Love You sign (that's how I selected the PL card on the left); all elements I used in my page:

What do you think; did I do the inspiration justice? I really like how it came out and got to cut into some very old papers in the process (2012). Is my funk a think of the past? Probably not, but creating this page has really helped me get back in the groove. Of course you can take a completely different route by working on a wedding project or something even completely different from all these suggestions. Just link up and let us know how the picture inspired you! 

Challenges:

* Lasting Memories (Outdoor Adventures) 

* Connie Can Crop (Use Your Stash)

* Crafty Animals (AG with Animals)

* Classic Design Team Challenge (AG)

* A Bit More Time to Craft Challenge (AG)

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10 Fun Things

Hi everyone,

I am on a roll this week. finished two layout yesterday evening! You will have to wait until next week for the other, but I can already show you one of them:

These are pictures from our trip to the zoo, I decided to do a list of fun things that happened that day. I was inspired by that 1-10 sticker, which I have been saving for an occasion just like this for ages but never got round to actually using. I never do these kinds of layouts, mainly because I am scared that I might not actually be able to fill all spots. And of course that happened here too, luckily I had our travel journal and my hubby's memory available ;) Making this page was especially satisfying, as I got to use up some of the leftovers I had on my desk from making the first page. They still look pretty different, hurray for double-sided paper!

Challenges:

* Lasting Memories (Summer Solstice) I used several elements as borders

* Creatalicious Challenge (AG, optional punches) I used a star punch on one of the borders

* Eclectic Epilau (A Touch of Pink and/or Purple) I used both colours as accents

* Challenge Yourself (Inspirational Picture) Blue Sky paper & photos stacked like the tall buildings; I'm in the picture with my back turned

* My Time to Craft (Summer Time)

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Bit of a Funk......

Good Tuesday everyone!

I hope you all had a good Father's Day weekend? It was pretty good here, we had some lovely weather so we went to the park for a bit. For Father's Day, my husband received a kiss card from my daughter she made at daycare, it's basically a laminated card with a real kiss from our girl that daddy can carry in his wallet wherever he goes. Awwwww :)

From one celebration to the next, as this is our inspirational picture 

@ the (P)inspirational Challenge this fortnight:

Prize is 3 digis from 

Morgan's Artworld

I had the perfect paper for this I thought, but unfortunately I seemed to have used it already! So I had to come up with another solution and boy, was that hard this time around! It seems that my crafty mojo has done a runner and I'm left with sheer determination just to create something worthwhile. It happens to me every so often; I just can't seem to remember how to scrap anymore, it 'just won't go'! I always end up thinking that it will never come back and I might as well sell all my supplies and quit, but of course I never do and mojo always returns. However, I did cut myself a little bit of slack when creating this layout; I chose a picture I wanted to scrap and went for some less obvious elements of the picture to make it work. You gotta do what you gotta do, right? ;) 

I started with the big flowers; I found this paper I've had in my stash for years and years and decided to work around that. So my colour scheme is totally different, not a similar location or celebration, but the layout is about family (I married into this family, so that's another connection. Work with me people!) and was taken outside on a sunny day. Other than that, there is not connection I'm afraid, I promise I will do better next time! I am happy though that I managed to complete a page and work through that rut :)

Challenges:

* Lasting Memories (Summer Solstice) I've use my title to create a long border underneath my photo, these photo's were taken in Summer as well

* Really Reasonable Ribbon (Summer)  I used Twine

* Simply Create Too (Summer Fun)

* 4 Crafty Chicks (Summer Fun Activities)

* Scrap & Craft (AG + String/Twine or Ribbon)

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Father's Day

Hello all,

I hope you all had a good weekend? We celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary this weekend and went away for the night and visited the Amersfoort Zoo. It was the first time our girl visited a zoo and she enjoyed it so very much. It was great seeing her response to seeing an elephant and giraffe for the first time beyond seeing pictures or drawings. So much joy for her and us too :) Stay tuned for lots of pages from this experience!

Another (P)inspirational Challenge starting today and this is our inspirational photo:

 

Lovely bright colours! Again, the picture made me remember a paper in my stash that was just gathering dust, just hanging around; #Forever Young by BoBunny. Actually, I had several papers from that line still in my stash. So i started with the backing paper and pulled stuff in along the way. 

These are pictures from last year's (and my husband's first) Father's Day, as another one is due soon I thought this was the perfect time to scrap these. Yes, there is bright pink on a layout revolving around my husband, but it's quite bold and combined with lovely greens, white and black. Anyway, I prescribe to the idea that I use whatever I want whenever I want ;) I have included some ephemera in the shape of a moustache that our daughter 'made' at daycare and a business card from the place we had our Father Day's lunch. I am not planning to do this for every Father's and Mother's Day, but the first one is kind of special, right? I am thinking I can take pictures of the gifts our girl will make for the coming years and scrap them all together on a page. We shall see!

The sponsor this time around is Beccy's Place, have a look at her shop and see all the beautiful digi's available there!

Challlenges:

* Crafty Cardmakers (For a Special Man/Boy or Father's Day)

* Glitter 'n Sparkle (One for the Boys)

* Crafty Calendar Challenge (Boys will be Boys)

* Connie Can Crop (It's a Guy Thing)

* Come and Get It (Anything Goes)

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Krafty Family Visit

Hi all!

Just one more day at work this week and then it's off to see my parents with our little girl! Now that she's walking, I am curious to see how happy she will be staying in the pram for the duration of the train trip. I am thinking probably not so much.....Anyway, today is the start of another (P)inspirational Challenge, this is our inspirational picture:

 How cute is that? I took the brown, white lace and cuddling from the picture and used it to scrap the story of our girl meeting her grand parents for the first time.

Why not join the challenge this fortnight? You can use the picture any which way you want, just as long as you let us know how you were inspired. This time, there is no sponsor, so this one's just for fun and glory ;)

Challenges:

* Scrap Our Stash (Tic-Tac- Toe) Journal card, Yellow, 3+ patterned papers
* Do-All Kreatives (Let Your Heart Speak)
* Kreative Inkauf (Pennants or Hearts)
* Always Fun Challenge (AG)
* Use Your Stuff (Bohemian Rhapsody)

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Vintage Birthday card

Hello everybody!

Finally, some nice weather here in the Netherlands! We spent Mother's Day in the garden and on the playground, a great way to spend the weekend :)

I have a vintage-style card to share with you today, I made this for my aunt's birthday. I used up some more Graphic 45 paper scraps, my aunt really liked it!

Challenges:

* Crafty Cardmakers (Add a Sentiment)

* Ooh La La (Something Beginning with B) Banner, Blue

* The Crafters' Cafe (Birthdays)

* Creative Craft Cottage (Three of a Kind) 3 yellow and 3 black pearls

* Glitter 'n Sparkle (One for the Ladies/Mother's Day)

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Napping

Hi all,

Hope you all had a nice International Scrapbooking Day last Saturday with lots of crafty fun! I had a scrappy evening planned, but I happened to be shopping with my friend in the afternoon and when I wanted to go home, all the trains were cancelled! Well, my train anyway. So I came home at 12 pm! No more ISD left for me....Oh well, I am sure I can plan some time soon and get my scrappy fix!

The new (P)inspirational Challenge revolved around this image:

I used the little flowers as my starting point and scrapped some picture of my own little fairy and her daddy. I used some 'forest' textures, such as woodgrain, branches and leaves too. 

Our sponsors this fortnight are Oddball Art Stamps and Digital Delights. Hope you can join us and share your project!

Challenges:

* Crafty Calendar Challenge (Flowers)

* Crafty Friends (Cute)

* Polka Doodles (Anything Goes)

* Glitter 'n Sparkle (For the Kids, Inspired by a Kid's film) Sleeping Beauty

* Dragon's Lair (Anything Goes, Optional Fashion Action)

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Using Up My Flowers

Hello all,

What a lovely sunny day today in my part of the world! Still cold, mind.....Nothing like a nice summer project to get me going when it's cold outside, so when I saw the (P)inspirational photo this time:

I knew I wanted to scrap some summer photo's! And here she is, our little girl, having an alfresco dinner in the garden. Unbelievable that this was less than a year ago, this weekend she started walking in earnest, stumbling her way around the living room! All the cliche's are true, they do grow up so fast..... I love it and hate it at the same time.

I took several elements from the inspirational photo, including the frame, butterflies and the word TODAY. I couldn't find any leaves in my stash, but I do have an absolute mountain of paper flowers that I want to use up and never do. Same with chipboard and butterflies, they really stump me on layouts! So I just started sticking around a circle I cut with my circle cutter (another one of those must-have tools that I rarely reach for somehow), using up flowers, brads and other assorted pieces I had to hand. I am pretty happy with the result, I tend to use rectangles of paper most often, so when I do something different it all feels so brandnew! I always say I should do this type of design more often, but then I never do....I guess I know my comfort zone!

We have two sponsors this time for the (P)inspirational Challenge: Imagine That Digistamps & The Cutting Cafe. Check out these links to see what beautiful things they have on offer!

Challenges:

* Come and Get It (Circles)

* Creative Sketchy Girls (Flowers and/or Butterflies)

* My Time to Craft (Sequins and/or Buttons) I did both

* Just Add Ink (Choose 2: Metallics, Balloons, Circles) I used Metallic letter stickers and created several circles on my LO

* Great Impressions (April Showers Bring May Flowers) I used a bunch of flowers on my LO and included the purple

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Birthday Boy

Hello everyone,

Another Graphic45 birthday card to share with you today, I love using up these paper pads for cardmaking! Love the quote and thought it very appropriate for a birthday ;)

Challenges:

* That's Crafty (Outnumbered)

* Try it on Tuesday (Add a Quote)

* Crafty Sentiments (Men/Boy) 

* Ooh La La (Birthday)

* The Paper Girls (Numbers)

* Dragonfly Journeys (Hip to be Square)

* Words 2 Craft By (Number Mouse)

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Wedding Calamity

Good morning all!

It's that time again, today is the start of a new (P)inspirational Challenge! 

We have this photo as our inspirational starting point:

Makes sense with Easter just around the corner, but my mind immediately went to this one piece of paper that I had in my stash with doily ovals. So I am sharing a wedding layout with you today, documenting my tendency for calamity, especially when something important is about to happen. So yes, I did manage to cut my fingers just before we got married and all eyes in the room would be on this hand......unbelievable how I managed it! Anyway, it's all good now, but it seemed a story worth recording to me, as accidents are such a big part of my personality LOL

What will you go for? Our sponsor this time is Sasayaki Glitter, so well worth entering the challenge!

Challenges

* Sweet Stampin' Challenge (Mellow Yellow) the lace border is created using a stamp 

* Create with Connie & Mary (Colour Combination)

* Dragon's Lair (AG with optional twist of Wedding Day)

* Scrap It With a Song (Somebody to Love)

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Way Back When

Hello crafty peeps,

Did you have a good weekend? It was great springlike weather here, we had a bike around both days with our girl in front of me pointing and laughing all the way, it was delightful! Talking about bikes and spring, here is our new inspirational photo over @ the (P)inspirational challenge:

Would have been perfect for this weekend's photo's, but we didn't take any and just enjoyed the experience. So instead, I scrapped a very old picture (1993!) of me and my class mates in high school. Seems like a lifetime away (and by this time, it pretty much is of course)! I let myself be inspired by the lightblue window frame and the white wall, as well as the bike basket where all the flowers are in. Perhaps not the most obvious way of being inspired by a picture, but I have had this W R Memory Keepers triangles paper in my stash for quite a bit now and I despereately wanted to use it. I love it, but that light blue is not a colour I scrap with very often, so I very often passed it by regretfully when I was looking through my papers.This time I was determined to make it work and I did it! Yay for me ;)

We have two sponsors this time around; Elisabeth Bell and Fred She Said! If you would like to join, please link up directly to the challenge blogpost and let us know how you were inspired by the photo (personally, I love to read how you were inspired!).

Challenges:

* Lasting Memories (Use 5 different patterned papers)
* Crafty Friends (B is for...) Blue, Black & Brown colour scheme
* Making Memories (Add Some Layers)
* Ooh La La (Layer It Up)
* 613 Avenue Create (Anything Goes)

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Birthday card

Good morning all!

I'm back with a card share this time, I made this card last night for a good friend who is turning 39 this week, using up some of my Graphic 45 papers.I used a mask on the frame to create the brown stains, really looks quite authentic in real life! I love how the white card stands out from all the vintage-style papers :)

Challenges:

* Create and Makes (AG, optional twist: Make it Vintage) 

* Cute Card Thursday (Celebrations)

* Words to Craft By (Proverbs & Blessings)

* Incy Wincy (Happy Birthday)

* Scrap & Craft (Celebrations)

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The story behind my wedding bouquet

Hi everyone,

Two more week have passed, that means another (P)inspirational Challenge is starting today! This is our inspirational picture this time around:

The flowers immediately sparked some inspiration for me, I have a paper with similar flowers that I hadn't cut into! A quick rummage through my stash confirmed it: yes, I did, let's use it and fussy-cut some of the flowers! I also mimicked the chalkboard look a little bit by using a dark background paper, although it's not quite a chalkboard 'pattern' (turns out I didn't have any 12x12 like that in my stash). I did find some 6x6 paper pad that had a pattern with chalky frames on it, so I used that. I combined a larger square picture (4x4) with two small 2x2 detail shots to support my story. 

This LO is about how we chose the flowers for my wedding bouquet; they included roses but also thistles, which is probably a bit unusual for a wedding, but since my husband is Scottish it worked really well. Overall, I am pretty happy with the LO, but I think next time I would make the frame paper angle less extreme and show off the paper more by placing it higher on the page while keeping the rest the same. Oh well, you live and learn ;)

Hope you get a little inspired by my make and play along with our challenge yourself. Our sponsor this fortnight is A Day for Daisies, check our their website using the link below!

Challenges:

* Scrap & Craft (Celebrations)

* Making Memories (Add Some Layers) 

* Dream Valley Challenges (Lots of Layers)

* Another Freaking Scrapbook Challenge (Use Chipboard and something old from your Stash) 31/3 Everything is relatively old, included chipboard heart
* Hiding in my Craftroom (Use up some Scraps)
I used up some Simple Stories cards from a cutapart sheet; the blue chevron card was stretched to create the illusion of a full piece of paper (that took a bit of creative cutting!) and the card with the railing was repurposed to hold the little pictures. Also used some scrap paper to emphasize the title and fill up the space between title and journaling

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Birthday card

Hi everyone! 

March is always a big month for me in terms of birthdays and anniversaries, so a card-making sessions was definately in order for me! Today I am sharing the first one, using some Graphic 45 8x8 paper pads from my stash. I love using these papers for card making. I have some 12x12 papers as well, but they just don't really match my scrapbooking style. Funny huh. 

Anyway, here's the card:

Challenges

* Scrap & Craft (Celebration)

* Creatalicious Challenges (AG with option of Green)

* Delicious Doodles (Add Something Green) 

* Dare2BArtzy (Lots of Layers)

* Dragonfly Dreams (Girly & Diecut or Punch)

* Paper Players (Cut it Out) 

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