Getting Back to Normality

Hello there, how are you today?

Can you hear that? It's a lack of noise, H is back at school, Hubs is back at work and I'm alone here in the Crafty Alchemy Lab, well not quite alone, Bailey Dog is curled up on my chair snoring loudly, it's nice to be back working hard in the peace & quiet, I've achieved a lot over the Summer, new products, new connections and a new plan, a big one. I'm rather excited. 2015 is going to be one busy year for Crafty Alchemy.

My personal crafting time has all but evaporated at the moment but I'm confident things will even out over time.

I've got a little layout to share that I made a while back, H has often sat watching me knit, both Mum and I have tried to teach her, but she was never that interested, but back in June she showed an interest again so out came the little knitting needles and a bag full of yarn, and off she went, she seems to have picked it up, she talks herself through each stitch - "in through the back, wrap yarn around, pull it through & off" - it's quite amusing to listen to, but she's doing really well, she's keeping it easy at the moment and knitting a blanket for the bears. 

It was one of these Sunday mornings when we were at Mum's when I snapped this photo of her concentrating really hard on her knitting...

I used an assortment of paper from a Quirky kit, I love the yellow and pink colour combination. I've doodled around the edge of the cardstock and coloured my doodly border in with a Rose Pink Promarker, I also doodled stitching around the scalloped edges of the pink paper. The little cork hearts are actually cork stickers. The journaling is in a pink 3d frame and says " Hermione at Nana's house, concentrating very hard on learning how to knit"

I wanted a knitting style embellishment but would you believe I had nothing knittingish in my stash - I know shocking isn't it! So I got some yarn and wrapped into a teeny little skein of yarn and stuck 2 heart topped pins through it to look like knitting needles, I used a blob of glue to attach it to the page. I also used a few little stickers attached with 3d foam pads for a bit of dimension, such as Staying Focused, Let's do something amazing today and Happiness is Homemade.

Well that's all from me for today, I'm tackling the To Do List (It does deserve capital letters) continuing plans and trying to remember who I was meant to email.... It's really bugging me, I can't for the life of me remember who I said I'd get back to despite going through my inbox, oh well, I'm sure I'll sort it out.

I'll be back later in the week when it's my turn over on  the Sarah Hurley 365 Blog.

Take care & hope to see you soon.

Claire xx

Making a 3d Framed Layout

Morning, morning, morning, how are you today, the sun is shining, H is back at school and my week off is coming to an end.

I've been finishing up the Christmas products ready for launching next week hopefully, my desk is full of felt squares at the moment, but I've had a good re-organise so I still have room to work.

I'm trying to use up as much scrapbooking stash as possible at the moment, as I really need the space and there is no point just hanging on to papers that are too pretty to use, so once again I'm on a mission to use it up.

So for this layout I delved into the forgotten corners of my paper rack to see what I could find....

First I grabbed some blue cardstock to make my frame, I used a template cut from yellow cardstock for the frame, so I drew around it, cut the scalloped edges then cut out the centre of the cardstock using a craft knife

So that it looked like this, I also popped some brads around the edges and doodled a border around the edges

I trimmed the patterned paper a bit so that it didn't stick out from behind the cardstock frame, then attached the frame using 3d foam tape...

Ta Dah!

I created a faux Polaroid photo with a photo & some white cardstock and used 3d foam pads to attach this to the page. I love this picture of H, she was only about 2 at the time. I've used  foam & chipboard Thickers for the title

The journaling reads "Hmm...let me see, today me & my bears are going to take over the world and cause all kinds of mischief. Then we'll have sandwiches, cake & juice for lunch! Bwahaha!

I hope you've enjoyed stopping  by today and hope to see you soon.

Claire xx