A Week At The Lake

I spent a week at the Lake District with LPH to learn how to take better photographs and to learn new techniques. I loved this week! Calming and relaxing but still creative and fun. We went out for all five days and had to pick 10 photographs to be looked at each night.  We mixed a family holiday (Mom and Step Dad) in with a creative holiday.

 Some times it seems like it would be difficult to pick just 10 photographs! but it was doable. For the last night we had to pick two of our favourites from these ten. I've picked one from each day to show you.

Monday. At Watendlath Lake (I believe). A low angle.  First time I've used my big DSLR camera since Christmas, so it took a while to get used to the settings again.

Tuesday. A 'free' day to go out by ourselves.  We walked around either Cadger How Wood or Brow's Wood - not really sure.  Spotted a field of sheep when we stopped for lunch.

Wednesday. I think this is at Buttermere.  I've always loved these slow shutter shots of moving water and this is the first time I've been able to get a good shot! (Ususally they are over/under-exposed- I never gave myself enough time to figure out how to do this). Thank you John.

Thursday. Another 'free' day.  We went to Whinlatter National Park and decided to hike up 500m for lunch (Seat How Summit Trail).  Took this photograph on the way down. (I did alter it in Photoshop but I think I need to play with PS more to learn how to do this).

Friday. Our last day to take photographs in the Lake District.  Magically this feather just stopped where it was needed so I could get a photograph of it! This was taken at Loughrigg Tarn.  I'm glad John has blipped some of these and that he knows where we went!

I've also started using BlipFoto. I signed up back in January but only started using it last week. Stop by and leave a comment.

hello toes layout

I love playing along with the Scrap365 sketches challenges.

This is what the layout looked like last week. Just some little embellishments and misted circles.

And this is the layout now.Printed out two photographs of my toes, one in colour, one in black white, I cut around my feet one the black and white photograph and used foam tape to put in over the colour photograph.

All the little embellishments and arrows are from Simple Stories Summer kit - love playing with them!

I used a new stamp set too.  On the sun burst stamp I inked the inner of the sun in orange and the rest of the stamp in yellow.  Some neon pink and blue circles finish off the background nicely.

To finish I added a acetate banner from Heidi Swapp and some Chic Tags to hide the adhesive.

A date stamp completes that layout so now I can put it away in an album.

GoGo Retreat 2014

Last month Mom and I went on our third UK bases Mother Daughter craft retreat. These are just some of the layouts I created in class and at home.

 This was a great class to get into a crafty weekend. There is a hidden journalling pocket. I have never used a doily on a layout about me before... Sometimes I love using the Manufacturing strip on my layouts!!!

 This was one class I just had to do! Drew the Mickey head shape with mists and added a bunch of Simple Stories Say Cheese bits.  Peter took the photograph of us after we went on Kali River Rapids three times in a row! (We had to buy some dry clothes...)

 The sketch for this layout only had one photograph but I had these five of Layne jumping which I wanted to use.  I think it looks good with five photographs. I proud that I was able to fit all five jumping photographs on one layout.

I got this kit for a PL style page and used photographs taken on my phone of our weekend away.  Lots of shoes pictures in various places around the grounds of the hotel we were crafting at and various places around the airport.

I think I have finished most of the classes... still lots of new ideas running around my head though!

Scrap365 Sketch Challenge

I always intend to enter layout challenges. A lot of the time I create a layout and then forget to enter it before the challenge closes!

I found this photograph from about 2009/10 of when we (Mom, I and Peter) went to our first ever craft retreat. We went to Pounawea, South Island in New Zealand (we were living in Wellington at the time so wasn't far to travel).

 We went for a walk around when we got there and found this 'secret' beach which was a great opportunity for some photographs.

The most memorable part of this retreat wasn't even the retreat! This was the year that Chile has an earthquake! A tsumani warning was issued for the part of the South Island we were in and we evacuated away from the coast and eventually got a lift to the airport - where we had a five hour wait for our flight home.

I added some red brads and full stops from the Dear Lizzy Thickers 'Treasure' onto the drops of mist.

What I created at Sarah's Cards Retreat

A couple weeks ago Mom and I went up to Warrington for our second Mother/Daughter craft retreat (first with Sarah's Cards). It was an easy quick fun flight and then we started our classes.

Class One: This was the class with doodling - which I wasn't really looking forward too... I used a black and white photograph of my gran and great-granddad.  This was a good class to get into the crafting weekend.

Class Two: For the second class I used this photograph of my Grandma Violet.  This sheet of patterned paper from the kit went perfectly with the photograph.  The doilies were heat embossed... my heat embossing isn't that good but since we know own a heat gun it should get better.

Class Three: Love these papers! So many bright and eye aching designs!  We cut frames from the whole sheet of white cardstock and put squares of patterned paper behind and added decorated bright squares to the front. Love this technique.

Class Four: Normally I wouldn't go for these style of papers.  I worried about the use of roses and so much pink on this layout of Spot (a boy boy dog) but I think it shows his softer side.  The bows were made origami style from patterned paper.

Class Five: A project life styled class.  The Saturday before the retreat I still needed seven photographs for this class so I decided to do a Day In The Life.  It was fun doing these little cards and I learnt some new things for my Project Life.

Class Six: The last class. My mind was starting to get overused from all the creative so pretty much stuck to the instructions.  I used a photograph of me and Mom in Ireland last year.  I love this washi tape and the was enjoyable.

Sketch challenge:  The first challenge was a layout challenge.  I bought some papers from the charity table and used photographs from the Monday before the retreat when we had an avalanche of snow!!! A whole about 6 inches of snow in about 2 days! I used washi tape and a stencil and other bits I bought from the shop at the retreat.

Kit challenge:  We were all given a kit of papers and an alphabet set.  I wasn't going to do anything because I didn't find the papers inspiring but then I started cutting the flowers out of this sheet of paper and started to find the papers inspiring.  Just a simple photograph of my brothers when they were about 2 and 3.

And that's it.  I came home full of ideas and lots of new things to play with.  Already booked for another craft retreat for next year (sadly not with Sarah's Cards though).