I hadn’t realised it had been so long since I’d done a PaperPlay challenge but, this week, the challenge was back to school/starting school. As Toby starts school next week, I’d intended to send a card anyway, so things fell nicely in to place!



The schoolboy image is a digital image from Mamidoodles

Shimelle is running a crop on her blog this weekend and, while I’m not too sure how much I’ll have time to do, I did manage to scrap these photos from a recent day out at a falconry display.

This layout is for the Starting Point Challenge which gives a basic layout. I’ve rotated and flipped the original - and added an extra page to make it a double layout!

Ok, so it was July when we were on holiday and I have absolutely no idea where the months went, but here are a few photos from a lovely week in Cascais, Portugal:

Cascais:

Lisbon:

Sintra:

Cabo Da Roca (Westernmost point of mainland Europe)

This week’s PaperPlay challenge is a colour combo set by Julie. Here’s what she had to say…

“Brown and….
I don’t wear brown, I have no brown in my house, but my goodness, I use it a lot in crafting!!!
A relatively easy challenge, you must use brown and another colour (or colours).”

Here’s my entry - brown and pink (with a little bit of yellow!).

It hasn’t turned out at all the way it was in my head - I guess it’s another card for the ‘it’ll do’ pile!

I may not have posted too often lately, but I have been busy making cards! Here are just a few of them…

I also entered this card in April’s challenge on the Craft Supplies forum. The challenge was to use a sketch, but entries were to be monochrome! To my surprise, and despite some stiff competition, my card won!

The Sketch	My Entry

Last Saturday was National Scrapbook Day and CropStop hosted a blog-hop challenge which, fortunately, we had a week to complete! Full details are on the CropStop blog, but this is the prize they’re offering:

We needed to visit all the blogs listed to gather the elements for the project:

1. Cropstop - Cardstock/Your choice of color

2. Jessica - Patterned Paper

3. Veronica - Your choice of item - I chose bling!

4. Elisabeth - Chipboard

5. Anneliese - Ribbon

6. Lisa - Punch

7. Stacy - Ink/Markers

8. Dalis - Flowers

9. Vicki - Quote “Life holds special magic for those who dare to dream”

10. Gloria - Sketch

This is Gloria’s sketch…

And this is my finished project:

The photos are from my uncle’s wedding in the 60s - my mum was bridesmaid and she’s also pictured with my dad. I’ve flipped the sketch and, while I’ve used a vintage style patterned paper, I’ve also tried to keep the idea of the 60s with the pink and orange flowers and ribbon! Hopefully the lacy flowers cardstock has also kept a weddingy feel to the layout.

I really enjoyed the challenge - thanks for the inspiration girls!

This week’s challenge over on PaperPlay is a sketch from Sandie

Here’s my take on the sketch…

Once again I’ve missed a few weeks of the PaperPlay challenges, but I had a bit of time yesterday, so here’s this week’s:

“This week we are asking you to create love themed projects”

I took part in a Valentine swap on the CropStop forum and, of course, forgot to take a photo before I sent mine! I found out this week, though, that one of the girls misread the list, so, while I’ve received the card I was expecting, another one is on the way! I thought it only fair, therefore, that I make another card to send back, so here it is…

The stamp is Penny Black and the hearts are Gemstones cardstock. Ribbon is from CropStop.

At the beginning of this month we, like most of Europe, had an awful lot of snow! Ireland doesn’t normally get much snow, and if there is any, it usually vanishes as quickly as it arrives! It was a bit of a shock to everyone’s system that this year we had snow for over a week!

A seasonal visitor braves the snow

The grass(!) and road just in front of our house

Our snowy house

Starting to thaw

I haven’t done one of the PaperPlay challenges in ages, but I’ve managed this week’s!

“Make something dedicated to our friends that bark, squeak, meow, roar, moo or neigh.”

Foxes do bark, don’t they?! I bought this stamp last year and finally got around to using it!

Papers are Basic Grey Boxer, flowers are Maya Road, ribbon and brad from stash.