Card Class

At The Merly Impressions Retreat weekend Emilie Charmel put on an impromptu class to make three cards, showing us various techniques with inks, stamps flowers and printed images. You could apply these to almost any design making it a very versatile class. It was a lovely surprise to have an extra class and we all enjoyed learning from Emilie's ideas.

 

The kit contained the card and envelopes, a selection of Kaisercraft Blooms, Rhinestone Sparklets,  images from the First Love paper from the Secret Admirer collection. Then we had use of a massive array of Kaisercraft stamps and inks to play with. I added some of my collectables from the Porcelain Rose collection and some other flowers and letters from my stash.

A Car for Catherine

My final layout from the Merly Impressions retreat last weekend, is this one featuring the Porcelain Rose Kaisercraft collection. My photo is from Father's day two weeks ago when Dad gave Catherine his car. She has just started her driving lessons.

 The kit for this page included Denim Kaisercard, Precious & Artifact papers and the collectables from the Porcelain Rose collection,
There was also a set of Delicate Lace Stamps and some red DMC stranded cotton (which I used but didn't end up including on this page).

I added gems and ribbon and a sheet of white cardstock. I trimmed the card with a Martha Stewart round the page punch set. I also added some tiny letter stickers from My Little Shoebox.

Thanks again to Chrissy for designing this kit, here is her original layout:

Thanks for looking - I will be back with some cards made at the weekend and the box when I have completed it.

Good luck with the driving Catherine. x

Lynn x

Fun with Friends in Norfolk - 1996

The next class I took at the Merly Impressions Retreat was another page designed by Chrissy, and is a bright, fun, multi-photo layout.
      

I used a collection of pictures I found a while ago that were sent to me by a friend I made in the early days of being a mother of multiples. Catherine who had a son already was expecting twins and had seen my picture in a cross-stitch magazine (I was interviewed about a sampler design I had created). They had featured my triplets and she contacted to me for advise. We have been friends since and she now also enjoys scrapbooking. We both used to holiday with our young families on the north Norfolk coast and so we met up at the lovely house in West Beckham were we used to stay. It had a brilliant garden and the weather was amazing that day. Catherine sent me these photos from that day.

This kit consisted of Kaisercraft papers and Collectables from the Hopscotch collection, Licorice cardstock, DMC stranded cotton sewing thread. The papers are Unreal, Wicked and Fab.
We used a Martha Stewart round-the-page punch, and the Sew Easy tools.

We made a book with four of the photos.

I added flat-backed pearls, Liquid Pearls, corner rounder punch and some alphabet stickers.

Thanks to Chrissy for another great class and here is her original layout.

Thanks for looking.
Lynn x

Relax!

The third class I took at the Merly Impressions Retreat was designed and taught by Emilie Chamel. I chose to use this colourful photograph of my daughter and her friend relaxing and celebrating after finishing their three year Drama and Theatre Arts course at University.

To make the page we had a kit containing two sheets of white cardstock, a set of stamps from the Kaisercraft Elegance collection, two tubes of Kaisercraft acrylic paint, a selection of Kaisercraft paper blooms.

The watered down pant was flicked over the page and then an area painted on the second sheet from where the feathers and title were cut freehand!

The images were stamped in black ink then I coloured mine by watering down the paint further.  The photo was added raided up on foam pads. Then the paper blooms were arranged. I added some decorative pins, flat-backed gems and Stickles. The journalling is written straight onto the cardstock.

Very different to my usual pages, but I loved making this project with Emilie. She gave us lots of extra tips and hints too. Here are a few close-up photos:

 

 

 Here is Emilie's original layout:

Thanks for this fun class Emilie.

Thanks for looking.
Lynn

Picture Perfect

For the second class kit I worked on at the Merly Impressions Retreat I chose to do this one with a photograph of my nephew - Mark at my wedding back in 1984. He wore this lovely sailor suit and dressed up again the day after the wedding for a photo session in the garden, so Dad could do a painting of him.

This kit contained papers and embellishments from the Kaisercraft Miss Empire collection -Supremacy, Ancestry, Steampunk and Regent, and a pack of matching Collectables. Coffee Bean cardstock. 

For this layout I cut out a lot of the images from the papers as well as the Collectables. I added glossy accents, gems, pearls and Stickles. I highlighted the chain on the birdcage with metallic pearls. I also used some ribbon, papers roses and daisies.

Here are a few close-ups:

The frame was gutted and shading painted in with diluted inks.

Closer view of the cutouts and the glossed clock face.

The ribbon on the paper was also had the shading pained with inks.

This frame was also glossed and ribbon added to the tag.

Thanks again to Chrissy for designing this page and putting together the class kit for us. Here is her layout:

Thanks for looking.
Lynn x

Mary & Bob 1950's (Merly Impressions)

The first of the layouts I completed at the Merly Impressions Retreat was this one featuring a photo of my parents from 1950's. I love this old photo and it was damaged near the bottom with a stain, but I decided to leave is as it is, and the stain was covered by the paper images.

This layout was designed by Chrissy and I will include her original at the end of the post.
The kit contained papers and other embellishments from the Elegance collection from Kaisercraft.
We had double sided papers -Flight of Fancy, Pure, Bohemia and Thoughts. Elephant Ears (grey) card stock. We had a whole pack of Elegance Collectables, and another pack of Teal Pearls. We had a matching skein of DMC stranded cotton thread for the hand stitching and used the WRMK Sew Easy tools for creating the holes in the papers for stitching. Like Chrissy I did a lot of fussy cutting with images from the Collectables as I prefer not to have the heavy white borders around the images - quite a challenge for the feathers!

I added some gold glass dew drops, stickles, Distress ink in Iced Spruce and some pearls and gems.

Lovely class thanks to Chrissy, great kit and papers.
Here is Chrissy's pretty original page 'Happiness' featuring Merley:

Thanks for looking.
Lynn x

Challenged by Merly Impressions

I had a fantastic weekend away at the Merly Impressions Summer Retreat, held at Wyboston Lakes. Linda and I travelled there on Friday and met up with the others in the evening. It was lovely to be with old friends I hadn't seen for years, and to make many new friends as well.
 

We were given a goody bag which contained a Kaisercraft Beyond the Page MDF Recipe Book and we were challenged to create a journal during the course of the weekend. The book contained details needed for the weekend, some acetate dividers and card stock pages, all held together with silver book rings.  I didn't get around to taking many photos during the weekend but do have a few so I hope to be able to share with others who attended. I was too busy chatting creating, eating and generally having a good time to remember to take pictures!

I dug out some 365 Days collection papers, which I purchased from Chrissy last year and together with the stamps from the same collection I set about covering my journal. This example is called Schedule.

To this I added some hand crochet flowers, paper flowers cut with Spellbinder dies, paper daisies, brads, Prima wooded leaves, Dusty Attic chipboard chicken wire, Kaisercraft ink pad in Gum leaf, an old Key charm, ribbon, eyelets and lace.

I had great fun making these items, many thanks to Chrissy, Paul and the team for making it such a fun creative weekend. So much inspiration form all involved. This photo shows Chrissy finally getting to sit down for a few minutes near the end of the weekend - sleep well tonight Chrissy.

 Sandra showing Sylvia, Charlotte and Chloe her super album full of beautiful layouts.

Emilie saying farewell.

Thank you for looking, back with more creations later. I created six layouts and three cards and still have my beyond the page photo box to decorate.

Lynn x

Happy Birthday Rob

While at the Scrapology Catch Up Day, I made a card fro my brother's birthday.

I used a new stamp from Lili of the Valley's Vintage Boy collection. I coloured it with my Promarkers. The greeting and date stamp are also from Lili of the Valley.
The papers are all from a 6" x 6" paper pad - Vintage Finds by Teresa Collins, I used plenty of distress inks to tone down the bright whites and age the edges of the papers.

I am entering this card for the I love Promarkers challenge this week. The theme is 'Anything Goes'.

Thanks for looking.
Lynn x

Multi - Celebrations

Sunday 16th June may well have been Father's day, and we were celebrating that with a family gathering that involved four fathers (Dad, Alan Bob and Mark), but we had much more to celebrate as well.

Happy Father's Day Dad x

My sister and brother in law, hosted a bar-b-q in their garden and the weather stayed fine.We cannot see my brother (Rob) next weekend so we were celebrating his birthday a few days early. Also his wife had just returned from six months away in Brazil. Although Rob has been out there a few times, the rest of us had not seen her since November. Welcome home Elaine - we have missed you.

Andrew has also been away, he was in Toledo for ten months completing the third year of his Masters, so it's lovely to have him home again, and we caught up with his 21st, Easter and Christmas as well as welcoming him home.

Then we had a lovely surprise, which is also very sad at the same time. My lovely Dad has decided to give up driving and presented his car to Catherine as she has just started driving lessons.

Dad, Catherine and the car

Catherine and her boyfriend George

We were also pleased to have Emily home from Nottingham for a few days, she has gone back for about four weeks and then after her graduation she will be home. So we are also celebrating the fact that Emily and Catherine have finished university. Catherine heard she has a two month contract as deputy stage manager which will take her to the Edinburgh Festival to work on two different productions. Emily herd she has achieved a First in her Creative and professional writing BA. Catherine is still waiting for her results.

I can't believe I didn't take more photos, but home some of the others did and can fill in the gaps for me here.

So it's all change in our house, with job hunting, moving out and around the world! So very busy!!
Thanks for reading.
Lynn x

Scrapology Catch Up Crop Day

Yesterday the Scrapology club ladies met up for the day, at an event which has affectionately become known as our 'Catch Up' day at the EllenorLions Hospice Centre in Dartford.

This is where we also meet monthly on the first Thursday evening of the month.

Yesterday we met from 10am 'till 5pm and worked on what ever we wanted to do. We had a sales table and a raffle, as well a goodie boxes and refreshments available all day. Various tools and equipment were available for all to use.

Many of the ladies taking the opportunity to finish off layouts from previous months' classes, club kits and challenges.

Here are a few photos of our day and also the amazing gallery of what was achieved.

Robert worked hard helping us set up and pack up and he cooked us all a delicious lunch.

 

OUR GALLERY

GLYNIS

HELEN

JOJune Kit Layout

 

JANINNE

WENDY

 

ADELA
April Kit Layout

  

JULIE

LINDA C

ADELA
May kit layout

KAREN

LINDA

ANN
June Kit Layout

 

LILY(age 9 years)

April Kit Layout

 JULIE
May Kit Layout

 

LINDA C

(Lynn's Cardinal Colours Crop Weekend Class Kit Autumn 2012)

 

DAISY

(11 years old)

September 2012 Kit Layout

JO
May Kit Layout

HELEN

LOUISE

DAISY (11 years old)

GLYNIS

 HELEN

LYNN

HELEN

KAREN

LILY
(9 years old)

LYNN

 SHARON
(Anita's 16"x16" Canvas Class Kit from Cardinal Colours Weekend Crop Autumn 2012)

 WENDY

Thank you for looking at our pictures.
Hope everyone had a good day.