Anyone for a Date?

I have been eating a lot of dates recently, since discovering them at a Sheik Mohammad Centre for Cultural Understanding breakfast, where you are treated to a traditional meal along with a talk about the Emirati culture...

Anyway, the palms are laden with their fruits now, and we are indulging in many forms of the delicious fruit.

One of my favourite ways is stuffed...Bateel do this gorgeous box filled with 2kg of all manner of stuffed dates.  Delectable to eat, and eye-candy too!

Dragonfly

I was playing about in the garden with my camera last week, sweating buckets as I did so!) and happened to be taking photos of my Frangipani tree, which is in full, fragrant flower and looking beautiful...

...when I saw out of the corner of my eye, a very bright insect flying around the foilage below... it was a vibrant red dragonfly.  I was mesmerised...

Isn't he beautiful?  I swear he was watching me... just look at his face!

A little bit of Britain

We celebrated the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, just a little bit, this week...

A 'street party' in class for the little chap, a taste of home in the shape of a trifle, and, of course, a few Union flags about!

The Rivington Grill at the Madinat Jumeriah was the venue for a Brits Brunch, though, and the Ladies who Lunch were in good form!

Luvly Jubly!

Mother of Mine - Happy Mother's Day

The American Crafts papers 'Neopolitan' Fresh Blooms and Twinkling Lights in the Lil Bee March kit are just fabulous Mother's Day papers... prettily pink and fresh - the jars brought to mind 'ingredients of a mother's love' immediately!

Lil Bee matched these papers pefectly with the Pebbles 'Country Picnic' Courtyard paper, which is polka dot, as you can see, but also dot embossed between the polka dots...a lovely paper.  The reverse is a very pretty green - which you can see I have utilised in the LO also...

So, firstly I decided on the Fresh Blooms paper as a large block, off centre, so I cut this to a 10 inch square and pencil marked where it was going to sit on the page... then I used a craft knife and metal rule to cut out an aperture from the Courtyard base paper, ensuring it was big enough to mat the photo (I used a 5x7) but small enough to be hidden!

I stuck down the Fresh Blooms and matted the photo...both of these papers I inked using Tim Holtz Distress Ink pad in 'Frayed Burlap' (a lovely mid brown which has endless applications...).  I think - when I remember to do it! - that inking really lifts a design, giving it a little 'edge' over just layer flat paper.  The paper I was left with which I'd cut out of the middle, I used, punching a heart design from an edge punch I have.  Again I inked the edge, using a bit of Cut and Dry foam pad to gently ink the edges with a bit of distress style!  Note, I cut the strip in half to use both sides and layer under the matted photo...

From the Twinkling Lights paper I cut 2 of the jars out carefully (Tip - leave a little edge of white when cutting against a drawn line... having uneven white is more forgiving than a hit-and-miss line!). 

These I inked again, and layered, sticking one directly onto the LO with the other raised using foam pads. I wrote on the jar, and used a punched heart to embellish.








The title intial letters are pre cuts from the kit.  I added the remaining letters cut from my Cricut, along with the 'I <3 You' and additional hearts...Using such a dark coloured title on the LO I needed to balance the LO, so used these additonal cut outs to do that.

Having stuck all this down, the remaining things were embellishments.  The windmill-flower from Pebbles (which I inked;-) was placed above the photo and layers, and the pretty Prima flower went above the photo on the right hand side.  I also added a couple of pearl hearts...and dated the LO in my favourite and indispensible white opaque pen!

I hope you like my LO!  The Lil Bee March kit is full of lovely items for making Mother's Day memories even more special - lots of Prima to come in my next project...watch this space:-)

Happy Mother's Day!

Yummy

As soon as I saw these gorgeous papers from Lil Bee’s Boutique kit – Webster’s Pages ‘Let’s Celebrate’ – I knew the pictures I wanted to scrap!

Using ‘Garden Party’ as the base paper, I matched a cardstock to bring out the vintage red in the paper and used this as a mat for the main photo and title, and cut a piece the size of one of the smaller photos… (Tip:  To get multi sized photos use the collage editor on most image manipulation software to size the pics you want onto one 7x5 or 8x6.  This way you just print the one picture containing all the different sizes of all the images you want for a LO – just cut them out and there you have it! For this LO I got a 5.5x3.5, plus 2 2.5x2 and a 3.5x2.5 all for the price of a 7x5.)  I also added a pink heart shaped doylie I got from a ‘pound shop’ back in England, and rounded some of the corners for more vintage feel.  The title is shimmer alpha stickers (Making Memories).

From the ‘Sweets and Treats’ paper I cut out some of the cupcakes and inked the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in ‘Peeled Paint’ (green).

These I layered on the bottom of the LO beneath two of my cupcake images.  Then the fun began – I got to play with the Cuttlebug and my new ‘Die-namics’ Prima Donna Petals die… Just look at these:-

By gluing the tab to the body and layering them up, you end up with a 3D flower – how fab is that!?  I did ink the edges of these also, and the effect is just great…

I finished up adding a Prima fabric flower from the Lil Bee Boutique kit and a brad – the devil’s in the detail you knowJ  A very tasty kit… Thanks Lil Bee!

POTD week 5 - Yes, I'm behind!

This is Week 5 - 29th January - 4th February... I will catch up!  Just need to create the collages:-)

Welcome Lil Bee Boutique's Valentine's Blog Hoppers...

to Hot Tog in the City.  I am so excited to be able to share with you my creation using Western Romance papers form the lovely Lil Bee Boutique Valentine's Kit.  I hope you like it...

This was a funlayout for me to do – it really took me out of my comfort zone, as I don't normally do such feminine papers, having 3 boys! But I couldn't resist the papers from Lil Bee's Boutique kit – Webster's Pages offer loads of inspiration…

The colours were perfect for the photo I chose, and as there is such a range of colour in the paper, it was easy to highlight those which complemented the photo.    

Using the 'Western Romance: Love Letters' as the base paper, I used the bottom 4 inches of 'Western Romance: Gratitude' to cut-out and add to the LO, going just up to the mail box on the right hand side, to give a layered effect. When sticking this down, I inked the edges and put foam pads behind the dog, to add to the layered effect.

I cut the top of the 'Gratitude' paper to use the wording as a mat for the photo, and used the plaid reverse of the paper to make another layered mat and give more of the yellow highlight.
    

   

This side of the paper was used again when I stamped the 'saying' and 'to' of the title. I then just roughly cut these out.

The Maya Road envelope and note card I used from Lil Bee's kit to suggest the 'distance' and 'goodbye' and used the lovely Maya Road stamp 'For the journey' as the seal of the envelope (along with the date – I ALWAYS date a LO, I think this is such an important part of memory keeping) and added the stamp to the bottom of the layout too.

My chipboard title I inked in yellow, and Mod Podged to seal them.

Other accents include the beautiful Prima flower from the Lil Bee kit and a few bits of bling – as they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and so too in scrapping – the yellow ink smudged on the paper (hence the sealing!) and so I added some bling bits to cover them up, and voila!! Don't forget to ink your edges – I used a dark brown to accentuate the brown of the drawings…
    

I hope you like my LO. Please leave your comments for me, and look out for the next LO coming very soon…all I'll say it's yummy!

Don't forget to hop along to these other blogs today and leave your comments:-

Nandini Rao

Teju Venkat

Karla Maynard

Hana Atif

All from Lil Bee's Boutique!  Pop back there now...http://lilbeesboutique.blogspot.com/

Happy Scrapping. Sue x

Photo of the Day: Weeks 1-4

I took on this challenge thinking what a breeze it would be, but how I wouldn't obsess about it!  Yeh, right! The first month became a 'try to capture the most important even of the day' challenge, but of course, that is an unrealistic expectation...then I got fed-up, as would anyone with that sort of pressure on themselves, so now, I shoot what I want and sometimes I even cheat a little!!

Beach Days

She sells sea shells...

Love the over-exposed look

Reflections

Sunset

Sunset on the sea

Lookout...