Dolly's Dreamings

Easter Sunday and a freebie

Happy easter Sunday everyone

I hope that you have all enjoyed a wonderful  day on this special day.

I shared this freebie before but figures it might be nice to share it again

download here

I have had a lovely crafting day making a  project I am thrilled with but can't share yet as it is for a post on IACW - but I love it.

I have also had fun making a very different page for me for the Scrapology challenge this month. It was a very busy design for me and used lace which I rarely use, but I figured it was worth a go.

The page I have made is for my Austria album and I used new papers, letters and flowers all bought yesterday. see, I knew I needed to buy them.

I also used a lace doily die cut (but covered most of it up, and lots of paper lace.

and I almost - not quite but almost - managed to avoid butterflies, but gave in at the end LOL

I had fun making it up.

My photo of the day will come later as I know what I want to take but just can't take it yet!

Today I am thankful for

• first and foremost all the blessings of Easter
• a 'not getting dressed day' We haven't had one of those for ages and ages
• a tidy cupboard and drawer - yes I tackled 'the dump drawer and cupboard' in the kitchen. My my I keep some junk!

 

And finally, as I am still playing catch up posting these, this is another of my 365/6 pages. This time it is week 11 and I used two of Dawn Inskip's templates combined.

 

It's A Creative World Blog Hop with freebies

 

So it is finally here - THE event of the Spring season. A very special It's A Creative World Blog Hop

You should have arrived from the amazing Sutty's blog (her work is awesome ... simply awesome)

In case you get lost, the full list of links is at the end of this post.

I am so proud to be a part of It's A Creative World. There are so many talented ladies who scrap, craft, sew, bake, crochet, ink, stamp, garden and just plain rock out crafts. And to celebrate Spring we have got together to do a very special blog hop where you can see so many different ideas that we hope will inspire you to be creative yourself.

And there are even some freebies along the way.

My little freebie is a $5 voucher for Pickleberrypop so you can snaffle up something for yourself to help you get creative for Spring. There are so many great Spring kits available and whether you are a digital scrapper or a paper scrapper you will see things you love. If you are a paper scrapper you could spend the voucher on things to print to add to your pages such as cool journalling blocks and word art or images to make cards.

 

So IT'S FREE  and it is money to SPEND. What have you got to loose? Just pop a comment in the box at the end of the post and a free $5 could be yours.

 

I will pick a winner by selecting a random comment on Monday morning. So ALL YOU HAVE TO DO is leave a comment below and you could have a little Spring bonus to spend.

 So now on to my offerings for the blog hop - a couple of spring pages and cards

 Firstly, I fell in love with this range from Prima called The Sun Kissed Collection. I think it shouted SPRING! I was lucky to get to go to a local farm at lambing time and, whilst we didn't see any lambs born that night, we did see lots of cute little lambs just a couple of hours old and the love their gentle mothers showed was such an inspiration.

 

I used lots of small flowers, adding beaded centres and also a cute chipboard butterfly stamped with brilliance shimmer inks and text to coordinate with the page.

 I don't know about you but no matter how many letters and alphas I have I never have the right colour to coordinate with my page. So for this page I inked some chipboard letters and then stamped them with text and then versamark ink before using clear embossing powder - several coats - so that they look like enamel.

and I also used some cute new dies I bought from Memory Box - some lovely swirls and a cute little picket fence die.

 

Never one to miss the chance to use up scraps I made a card with some of the leftovers.

 

I used one of the Prima Notecards as the background and added flowers and butterflies from the Hero Arts/Sizzix Framelits set - which is a joy to use.

and for those of you who are digi scrappers - or those of you who fancy a bit of hybrid and want to use your $5 voucher, here are some digital and hybrid ideas.

 

This card uses  

Day of Grace Full Kit by Trixie Scraps Designs available at Pickleberrypop

 

 and this page uses the same kit

and the spring freshness in Dawn Inskip's Enchanted Garden collection from Scrapbookgraphics is great for your spring pages.

and  this one using a lot of Dawn Inskip products from her on line store here

And finally this springlike page using a whole range of products from Pickleberrypop and was made using Fayettes template for this month's template challenge (You so have to check out their challenges -they rock!. Find them here )

So enjoy your Spring whatever you do and remember to comment below to have a chance at winning a $5 voucher to spend in the store.

 From here you are hopping off to MANDY's Blog 

I can guarentee you are going to love what she has in store for you! 

Happy crafting and, if you get lost, here is the list of all of the blogs from the hop

Start at IACW-

1-Laura-

3-Doda -

4-Gabrielle-

5-Eleanor

6-Erika-

7-Ifa-

8-Katherine-

9-Dolly-

10-Mandy-

11-Leanne-

12- Kerry-

13- Tracey-

Finish _IACW

Templates and a freebie

I am due to be away for a couple of days with work so am posting this ahead of time. It was a post I did for IACW last month and I hope you find it useful and interesting.

It's not cheating ... it's an inspirational help

I want to talk about templates today ... templates to help give your digital scrapping a bit of a kick start and an inspiring helping hand.

Many digital designers make templates, which are easy to use, easy to personalise and make your own. They are layered kick starts which you add your own papers and photos and embellishments to, but some of the hard work has already been done. Someone else has planned the balance of the page, decided where things go.  

They are a little like using sketches to inspire you to scrap and, just as you can adapt a sketch and make it your own, so you can adapt a template and make it your own.

The templates that are on the market are very varied. Some are incredibly simple, like the freebie offered today on here. They are a simple photo placement templates that you can use as they are or jazz up as much or as little as you like.

Some are amazingly detailed and also give you things in your scrapping that you might not be able to do without a template. For example, you can't do shaped text in elements but you can get templates that you can use in elements that have the shaped text built right in. Dawn Inskip is one of my favourite digital designers and her templates are unbelievably good and often do have text paths you couldn't make yourself.

I have a couple of examples to show you, using some of Dawn's latest Photo Empasis templates which, as it 'says on the tin', let the photos take centre stage but with such gorgeous layers and elements that you can use. For example this one used a template that came complete with the cute bird and branches that were also layered so you could personalise them. This was from Dawn's Photo Emphasis templates Volume 1 from her store at Scrapbookgraphics.

 

If you like lots of layers and lots of depth in your digital pages, then templates are a really easy way to achieve this. This French page was made using Dawn's Photo Emphasis Volume 4. It would have taken a long long time to get this sort of depth but was really simple to personalise using the ready made template and then adding your own bits and pieces to it.

 

You can also use really simple templates to give a very easy graphic look and then flip them different ways to give a coordinated feel. One of my favourite ever digital mini albums was a Journal Your Christmas album from 2 years ago where I used one template - flipped four different ways - for the entire album.  It made the album a really easy thing to fit in at a very busy time of year and made it look very coordinated even though each page was different. Below are 4 pages, one from each orientation.

 

Really simple to do.

So, if you fancy kick starting that mojo have a play with some templates and, just to get you started if you haven't used templates before, here is a really simple one that you can download and have a play with.

 

Download TEMPLATE 02 IACW

 

 

Timely reminders

It's been a hard couple of days with long hours but actually both Nigel and I are pretty good about rememberingt he important stuff.

You may recall our very own 'Hello Kitty'. No, not the cartoon and no the CFH haven't learnt to speak ... yet! The Hello Kitty is a very cute chalkboard cat who frequently says 'hello' to us in all sorts of ways. He celebrates school holidays and weekends, he reminds us of dates and times and events and Nigel delights in putting things on there to make me smile.

Tonight I came home and the Hello Kitty made me smile. Nij knew I would be tired and frazzled and so Hello Kitty had an important message. I am healthy, I am home, and I am happy and ... it's Tuesday so actually three more sleeps till the weekend.

So he is my photo of the day. (and he genuinely does stand next to the calendar)

 

I have soemthing to share today I made ages ago (in December) but I never posted it. Pauline, my sort of surrogate Mummy, had had an accident with her Exploding Box. One of the cats had knocked it off and it was severely nibbled by one of the dogs and I had promised to make her a new one. She is Emily and Elinor's grandma (Bossy Nanny and yes we all call her that!) so I wanted to use some newer pictures of the girls and of her children too. She is a very special lady in my life and so I wanted to create soemthing she could treasure.

 

She was thrilled with it.

 I have uploaded a file you can download if you have never made an exploding box and would like to try one. They are really simple, great fun to make and great little gifts.

Download Microsoft Word - exploding box class for blog

It was actually written for this box here which was used in a magazine.

Today I am thankful for

• Nigel keeping me focused

And my one minute devotional today is really poignant and Oh so true again (I am loving this calendar)

Noelle, my eight-year-old daughter, is in ballet class. She is learning relevés, pliés, and ronds de jambe. The little girls cross arms and join hands and then amble left to right and right to left. Tiptoeing, aware of their posture and position, with their heads held high, they create as much beauty as their little bodies will allow. Truthfully, it’s mostly a chaotic swirl of bodies in motion, but it sure is cute.

There is one girl in the class who, even though she’s dressed in a leotard that perfectly matches the others, doesn’t blend in. Lindsey is in a walker. Her hands clutch the handles tightly. Her legs don’t allow her to do even the simplest dance step. She is assisted by a young woman who moves her from place to place, and oftentimes that is simply out of the way of the others.

After class, Noelle sat on the floor with the other girls, chatting, taking off their ballet shoes, putting on sweaters, stuffing dance clothes into their bags. Meanwhile, Lindsey was being tended to by her caregiver.

Today, Lindsey might not have performed a soaring jeté. But in a sense, I think she did. She took an art form defined by the long lines of an extended leg, the poetry of a turned wrist, and a lighter-than-a-feather gallop across the stage, and said that that definition didn’t apply to her. And so, with a piano clanging in the room, her leotard on, mirrors in all directions, girls flowing all around her, Lindsey stood in one place, not moving an inch, and in a way known only to her, danced.

Lord, no matter what my limitations, give me the courage to try.

—DAVE FRANCO

 

A ruined Netley Abbey and some FREE word art

It has been an absolutely glorious day here today. Really bright sunshine (which almost masked how cold it was) and clear blue skies. We headed off to somewhere we had often said we would like to visit and had never been to - Netley Abbey near Southampton.

I hate to harp on about it, but did I mention I loved my i phone!!!! Before we went I downloaded an mp3 file about the abbey and when we got there we could listen to the commentary about the abbey which made it so much better, knowing what we were looking at.

I took a fair few photos, many of them with the i phone. This was the first time I had really taken pictures in natural lighting with it and I have to see, no surprise, I am very impressed with it.

I liked a lot of the pictures but one of them had to become photo of the day - and it happens to be this one.

But to whet your appetitie if you haven't visited, here are a few more.

 

 

 

The brickwork you can see, looking somewhat incongrous against the beautiful stone, dates back to Tudor times when the Cistercian abbey was destroyed as part of the dissolution of the monasteries and it was given to one of Henry's favourites who turned it into a manor house.

 

We decided to stop for lunch ont he way home, which is unusal for us as we are not 'lunch' people really but we figured a bar snack would be good. We went to two pubs which were so full there was no space in the carpark and the third - just outside Lyndhurst - looked lovely. It was but we ordered sandwiches and they then said they didn't do sandwiches on a Sunday! Ah well.

I have a new page to share today - love themed as it is my week 7 page and week 7 contained Valentines day.

And in keeping witht he theme here is a free download of some word art that I made for a project Valentine themed. If you would like it feel free to snag it. It is a png file and should also work for hybrid work too.  The download is after the preview picture.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Today I am thankful for

• lovely days out
• ice cream

And even the LOL cats are valentine themed

 

A lack of achievement but a Freebie too

Today is one of those days where I just can't focus, on anything really.

I think the worries niggling at the back of my mind, OK at the FRONT of my mind, are causing the lack of focus and so I think I am going to give in and give up and just vegetate with my Kindle for a while.

I did do a couple of things today though.

Firstly I took my photo of the day for today. As I am fearing there may be a hospital stay looming I figured, just in case, I ought to get myself some decent pjs - some that weren't leopard spotted really!

I only shop at the very best stores of course and so these are some of Primarks finest and at the princely sum of £9 they won't be a waste of money even if I never use them. They look a little odd in the picture as I folded them up somewhat - the bottoms are long with lace round the ankles - you get the idea.

 
I also caught up on week 4 - how is it week 4 that is completed of 2012 already!!

I decided on a very plain graphic look this week and I have also made a template which you can snag if you want.

This is the template you can download HERE. It is a layered png file - very simple but may be of use to come of you.

 Download Week 4 template

And this is my page for week 4

 Last night I veged out in front of the TV and watched the last Harry Potter film (Nij had bought it for Christmas) I loved the books so much and it is one of the few series that was as good in film .... almost .... as on paper. I think they were very well made and hopefully we will get to see Harry Potter World in Florida in the summer.

I also started on my new scarf (Nij bought me wool for Christmas) as I finally found the needles I had put away so carefully after the green one. I reall am NOT to be trusted when tidying!

Today I am thankful for

• time to chill out
• a very supportive husband

And finally today some more of that fabulous chalk pavement art.

 

 

Free UK Scrappers January House Challenge Template

I am no expert at making templates - believe me - and so this is a very very simple template to go along with the house challenge on UKS this month.

It is a zip file with a very simple layered PSD template in.

If you are new to digital scrapping and/or templates then it might be fun to have  a play with. It's free, so nothing to lose.

 

You can download the template file here  Download Jan House template UKS v 2

Have fun if you use it. x

To The Manor Born - and a Christmas Star

Its been a little cold today but we had a great visit to Avebury Manor, the manor they restored as part of the BBC series.

It has been beautifully restored and it was great to see it and be able to enjoy the work of so many artisans.

It was bizarre to go to a stately home and be actively encouraged to touch, to feel, to sit, to play with etc. It just didn't feel right.

It was freezing when we arrived, but that sort of bright crisp freezing that was beautiful in the December sunshine.

 

There was a beautiful wreath by the door.

The Tudor room was all done for Christmas with a banquet including hog's head all laid ou and you were encouraged to touch and feel. The pewter tankards were really heavy.

 

I had been especially keen to see the dining room with the hand painted wallpaper we had seen hung. When I think how scary it is to hang B and Q stiff, it must have been terrifying to hang that. But it was exquisite.

 

 

One of our favourite rooms was the snooker room or study as it was so like the room we have done in the doll's house so good to know we had got it right.

There was even a gramophone which they encouraged you to play and the sound was remarkable.

 I couldn't quite bring myself to lie on the bed - though many did - but the workmanship was stunning.

It was a shock, however, to see the Victorian kitchen and see this item.

 

We had one of these at home and I loved using it as a child. I am hoping that either it really wasn't from 1911 or they just kept making them into the 1960s! Either that or my parents kept stuff for way longer than even I am comfortable with!

It was freezing cold out - note the red noses LOL

but we did have a quick - and I mean quick - look at the stones as it seemed rude to visit Avebury and not see them.

 

I don't have new scrapping to share but thought I could now share the projects I made as part of my DT work for Karen at Charmed Cards and Crafts. Do head over there and look at all the great Christmassy items she has in stock. The papers and embellishments were a joy to work with.

This star is now in pride of place in my new dining room.

 

 I forget where I first saw these stars but there are lots of sites which have them and explain how to make them. I think I found it several years ago when searching for crafts to make with the children, though the assembly of this is perhaps a little fiddly for little fingers.

 

First I used the template to cut out five identical shapes from A4 cardstock. You could make it out of just thick paper, but using a cardstock base means it is a bit more substantial and lasts a bit better. (A4 template included with 2 shapes on) You can make the star any size you want to, just change the size of the templates you use. I would warn you not to go too small though as it gets a little fiddly.

 

Once you have cut out the five shapes and have covered them with patterned paper you can decorate them if you wish. I inked all of my edges as I was going for a vintage look, and I also drew faux stitching down all of the fold lines and joints.

 

You need to make sure you bend all the folds and score lines in. Then you are ready to assemble.

Fold the flap on piece 1 under and using very strong glue or double sided tape glue piece 2 to the little flap. Repeat this 5 times, and then make sure all the FLAPS are pulled out.

It then gets a little fiddly.  Glue the star together using double sided tape on the flaps making sure that the centre seam from the join from side A and B is to the rear of the star. It is much easier to glue two of the shapes together, then another two together and then join these two pairs together, before adding  in the last remaining ''point'',it is a little difficult at this stage but it works eventually.

 

I then decorated it with some ribbon and a prima flower.

 

Do Head over to Karen's site and see other design team projects here and my projects here

 Today I am thanlful for

• a great day out
• Karen sending  me such wonderful things to work with
• Snuggling warm by the radiator now we are home

 

Gifts and FREE WORD ART

I know that I will not have time to blog properly today and so I thought I would set this up in advance to share another page created with Dawn's amazing Christmas goodies.

First of all I have a free word art for you if you would like it.

It is very simple but prints nicely and might make a useful resource for you if you would like it.

It is a transparent png file at 300 dpi.

 

If you download it I would love you to leave a comment and let me know what you think.

You can download it HERE

Now, back to Dawn's work. She has so many lush things out for this holiday season at her store at Scrapbookgraphics - and there is more to come! Just wait till later in the week.

Anyway I digress. This is a page I made with many of her new products.

Nigel and I are quite obsessive about our gifts to each other. they are all wrapped in boxes so they are all square - no clues there - and the paper all coordinates and we have a huge collection of beautiful ribbons we use each year. It is daft, but one of our traditions. We have, however, learnt our lesson about putting other people's gifts in random boxes.

One year we bought Nigel's 90 year olf grandmother a new handbag we knew she would love. We wanted to discguise it so put it in an empty cereal box and wrapped it.

Two days after christmas we had a call from her to say thank you for the lovely gift. She wasn't as effusive as we felt she might have been. We thought we had selected a bag she would love. But heck - we didn't worry about it.

Until february - when we had a call to say thank you for the christmas present amidst a lot of laughter. Yup. She'd thought it was a little odd we'd bpought her cereal. That morning she opened the cereal at breakfast and found the bag! So we learnt a lesson there.

 Anyway back to the page. I love spoiling Nigel at Christmas and many of the gifts may be small, but they are all well thought out and we just enjoy the gift giving. However, thegreatest gift is the time we spend together and for that, each and every day, I am truly grateful.

 

Free Gratitude Thanksgiving word art

It's been a bit of a scrapping frenzy here today. Possibly because I didn't scrap at all yesterday.

I had the bright idea of making calendars for gifts. I wasn't sure how it would pan out so I thought I would start with one for my office as a trial.

It took forever to make the templates. I kept telling myself once they were done it would be easy.

Well it was easier, but not easy. I have made half of mine and guess what - I am planning buying alternate gifts for everyone else as I am NOT making a whole heap of these unless they are all the same LOL.

Anyway - to go with them I needed some word art and so thought, as it had a thanksgiving theme, I would share it here as I haven't shared a freebie in a while.

There are two versions in the download. A transparent and one with a background. They are both high res png files and so should print well. I used mine on a transparency.

 

 

Download HERE

 I haven't got my calendar to share yet - hopefully it may be done at some point this week.

Today I am thankful for

• time to create
• new things to play with