~The Sketch Pad~ Week 14

Once again it's Monday & that means a new sketch over at ~TheSketchPad~ http://www.scrapbook.com/myplace/index.php?mod=profiles&u=478379

This weeks sketch is in keeping with my favourite clean & simple style. I used this sketch to make a page for a challenge over at UKScrappers.com who had one of there fabulous cyber crops at the weekend. I must say it was my first time cropping with them & I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I got a lot more done than I expected that is for sure. Here is what I did with it. I used up some scraps & few alphas to create this simple yet fun page.

~New Folded Flower~ Tutorial

I just wanted to share with you a new folded flower i have been working with today. I am not claiming that these flowers are unique but in all my Internet travels around different flower tutorials i don't remember seeing one like these before. They are so easy to make & only take a few minutes. Even my 5 year old made one with a little guidance, so they really are easy.

What you will need to make your flower:

Pencil

Scissors

Double sided tape
Large scrap of patterned paper
Scrap of card stock
Circle punch/Stencil/Something circle to draw round.

STEP 1: Cut out 4 circles from your patterned paper & 1 from your card stock.

STEP 2: Ok here come your series of folds. Put your circle of card stock to one side. Take your 4 patterned paper circles & fold them in half.

STEP 3: Next fold the right side into the middle point of your half circle.

STEP 4: Repeat this action with the left side.

STEP 5: Your 4 circles should now look like the picture above. It is now time to adhere them to your circle of card stock. I find it easier to cut this circle slightly smaller than the other 4.

STEP 6: Your flower is almost finished. Now you can lift the folded flaps upwards for a more 3D effect. Alternatively you can curl the flaps or you can cut down each fold & curl in towards the centre. (See pink flower below). Finish off with a brad, button or something else of your choosing & voila your flower is done.

I hope you have as much fun as i did making these flowers, they are quick & simple & very versatile. I haven't finished playing with the different effects but there are lots of ways they can be curled to change the style to suit your page. My apologies for the dark photographs & the jumbled layout. Thanks for stopping by for a look.

Sketchabilities DT Reveal ~ 15th April

Can you believe we are half way into the month already?! It's the 15th & that means it's time for a new sketch over at http://sketchabilities.blogspot.com. Are you ready for some new inspiration, you will not find this sketch anywhere else. Here is the sketch I created specially for the Sketchabilities team.

The design team have done an awesome job with this sketch, please stop on by & take a look. I am working on scrapping a lot of older pictures at the minute & couldn't decide what to do with the sketch myself but I love how my page turned out. Here is what I did with my sketch:

Any die hard Winnie the Pooh fan will recognise the title as one of Tigger's well used phrases. These pictures were taken of my youngest son in 2005. I'm not sure how old he was when these were taken & must remember in future to put dates on my photos. I'm assuming he was around 8 or 9 months old.

Sweethearts Groovy April Flower Power Challenge!

It's officially April & Easter is almost upon us. The one thing I just love at the beginning of a new month is all the new challenges that start around the forums.

As you all know I have just joined the Sweethearts (Boys Only) team over at If it's groovy & I want to share with you the fabulous challenge for April. Our challenge this month is flower power!

We all know how difficult it can be to add flowers to a boy page. There are a lot of scrappers out there who don't feel like a page is finished until it has flowers added. So the design team have came up with some beautiful examples of how to add flowers to your boy pages without losing the masculine feel.

For my page I used the Fancy Pants Little Sprout line to scrap this baby photo of my youngest son who is now 5. I cut out the flowers from the scraps of patterned paper & fixed them to the page using brads. I curled the leaves to add more depth to the page. I don't use flowers very often & normally would scrap this page without the flowers, I enjoyed making this layout it helped me to think outside the box. I also tried to avoid the pink shades of paper in this line & used a dark brown background cardstock from American Crafts to try & keep the masculine feel.

So if you love to scrap your boys & would like some groovy challenges & groovy inspiration, why not hop on over to http://ifitsgroovy.ning.com & join in the groovy fun.