More Italy - Sorrento

I've been having great fun trying out different cut files with my Cameo. Here's a double page layout with some more photos from another trip to Italy - this time Naples and the Amalfi Coast. The script font on the left is 'Bonjour', by Nicky Laatz, which I found on Creative Market a wonderful site for fonts, graphics and more!

Explore Venice

I Italy is definitely one of my favourite places to visit and I've been enjoying reliving some of this memories while working with some older photos from travels in the early 19902. Here's a layout featuring some photos from Venice. And I even managed to include a photo of a postcard I sent home at the time.

Story Kit layouts revisited

I've been enjoying my Story kit subscription, although I haven't done anything with the last few kits yet - too many other projects on the go. But here's a look at a layout using the 'Craft' kit from a few months ago.

I was very pleased to get a craft project from my little niece - a cute handmade penguin. I thought it would be fun to turn it into a layout and made a penguin of my own to accompany it!

Cameo dust cover

When I ordered my Silhouette Cameo recently, I didn't buy a cover for it.  of course, after I hit 'purchase' I saw several owners recommending a dust cover be used. There's nowhere close to me that stocks Silhouette products, and I didn't want to wait until the next time I put in an online order somewhere, so I decided to make my own.

There are several free patterns available online - I used the one from Erin at Schlosser Designs which you can get here. They're pretty easy to make - you just need a rectangular piece of material and two end pieces. I managed to find some fabric in my stash.

Here are my pieces cut and ready.

And here's my finished cover.

It only took about 15 minutes and I saved myself a few dollars I can spend on something more exciting ;) So if you're short of a cover, give it a go!

Silhouette Cameo - cropping background shapes

I love the 12x12 cutting capabilities of my Cameo, but I mostly scrap A4 or 8 1/2 x 11 and was having a hard time finding background cutting files that would work well. Yes, there are a few available in the Silhouette Design Store, or from other sellers, but I also have a lot of 12x12 backgrounds and wasn't sure how to make them work.

Thanks to Vanessa's blog, I came across a great video tutorial on how to crop backgrounds in Silhouette Studio. The example involved making a PL card, but the technique is the same no matter what size you want to work with.

Check out the video here.

And here are a couple of screenshots of my crop in progress:

Hello Florence

I've been to Florence three times and it' still one of my favourite destinations. Lots of fun memories redoing these old photos - it really was a trip of a lifetime, just as my journaling says ;)

Let's be adventurous

Here's another layout from my travel album - reliving a journey through the Canadian Rockies and along the Icefields Parkway. Seems like another life!

Story kit layouts revisited

I've been a  bit slack using my Story Kits from Ali Edwards just recently - my excuse is that I've been concentrating on my travel album and lots of cards. But here's a layout from the 'Craft' kit a few months ago.

Going back and looking at these will hopefully get me motivated again. They are great kits if anyone is considering signing up!

Wonders of the Cameo

I've just taken delivery of a new Silhouette Cameo. My old Cricut was on the way out, and when I saw the Cameo on sale on Amazon, I didn't hesitate!

I'm getting to grips with all the machine can do, and have been on the hunt for cut files. Here's a great circle file posted by Geralyn Sy a while ago - perfect for my travel album and a page about Italy:

And here's a close up of the cut which I backed with patterned paper:

You can find the cut file at the end of Gernlyn's blog post here.

Tell a story

I've been subscribing to Ali Edwards' Story Kits this year, and trying to get better at telling the stories, rather than just minimising the journaling. Here's another layout from my European travel album - the story of a day trip with my favourite aunt.

Butterfly card

Here's a card using Papertrey Ink's Beautiful Butterflies inspired by one of Laura Bassen's creations. I cut an inch off the card base so the butterflies could overlap the lining paper. Love this design and think I'll be using it again.

Practice your pirate

As my niece will be off sailing this summer, I thought this would be the perfect card for her - using Studio Calico's kids' Valentines stamp set. Arrr me hearties!

Cards for my stash

I've been catching up on some card making recently. Whenever I add cards to my stash, it seems they're not the cards that I then need to send - if I make some birthday cards, suddenly I need thank you cards, and if I make thank you cards, I don't seem to use them for ages.

So I've decided that unless I'm making a card for a particular upcoming occasion, it's better to stick to plain card fronts. I can then add a sentiment later, when I'm ready to send it.

Go - Madrid

I'm making good progress with my 90's layouts. I've got such a lot of use from Studio Calico's world stamps - here's the Europe stamp in action, paired with a card from Ali Edwards' Go Story kit. The alpha stamp is SC's Wes stamp, which I'm using for most of my titles.

Cardstock challenge

I use a lot of white cardstock for my scrapbook layouts. Patterned paper also gets a look-in, but I rarely use coloured cardstock these days. So I thought I'd challenge myself to use something other than white for a background for these pics from Toledo, Spain. I quite like the effect, but don't think grey will be displacing white just yet!

Make it Monday #246 - faux brush lettering

I'm trying to take part in more of the Papertrey Ink Make it Monday challenges. This week's challenge from Amy is to use faux brush lettering in a project - and I found it to definitely be a challenge! Great idea though, as I don't really like my handwriting ;)

I used PTI's Graceful greetings sentiment stamps with inks on watercolour paper - and here's what I came up with:

And a close-up of the lettering:

Way back when - 90s album

One of my big projects for this year is going through several photo albums of the time I spent in the UK and Europe in the early 90s and scrapping the best photos and scanning remainder so I have a digital record of everything.

it's fun to relive a lot of experiences from those times - I'm so grateful for all the opportunities I had to travel and meet new people, see all sorts of amazing places. Here's one of my recent layouts - a spread from a holiday in Portugal.

Green eggs and ham

This is one of those occasions where the camera (well, phone) just had to come out. And no, it wasn't St Patrick's Day - just a new take on Eggs Benedict with a herb-based sauce.  I'm sure it's healthy, but I think I prefer the taste of the original!

90s travel album

One of my projects this year is to go back and sort out 5 years of photos sitting in regular photo albums, scan them so I have digital copies of everything and then scrapbook the best photos.

It's been very interesting re-reading my travel journal from that time as well as many of the letters I sent home to my parents, which my mother saved for me. I'm not much of a journal-keeper, but I can certainly see the value of my diary all these years later in terms of all the details that I'd completely forgotten!

Hope to share some of my layouts during the month.

Homemade- from tree to table

If you've come to visit me you know I have a large garden and a lot of fruit trees. There's nothing I like better than using my homegrown produce for preserving and baking. It's Autumn here in New Zealand and that means a crop of crabapples. 

My task last weekend was to turn these into jelly.

Crabapple jelly is actually pretty simple to make - all you needs is crabapples plus any flavouring, some water and sugar. Since I love ginger, well no contest really.

Cook the fruit/ginger for about an hour until soft, strain through a jelly bag to extract the juice

Then put the juice back in the pan, bring to the boil and add the sugar (1 lb sugar for each pint of juice). 

Boil until setting point is reached (220F/105C), pour into warm jars and seal. And here's the result:

Yum!