Gotta Shop..

Sandra has so many lovely things in stock at the moment! It's hard to choose, but I do have a few favourites:

The roller stamp everybody is talking about from Dear Lizzy - here and the famous jar stamp here

My new favourite alphabet stickers by Dear Lizzy for American Crafts. Gorgeous colour, really cute font

Also by Dear Lizzy, sold out now sadly; but there are papers and other bits (the buttons!) in stock - aren't the colours beautiful?



Cardboard diecuts from the Crate paper Pretty Party Collection Pack. Look, a cakestand!

What have you seen lately that's caught your eye?

Party On

Everybody loves a party and I'm certainly having fun with Crate Paper's Pretty Party collection. It has a nostalgic feel which has me turning to the photos from my childhood. Here is a page I made about my little brother and sister dressing up after they had seen me getting ready for a Fancy Dress Parade

Mixing up chipboard and stickers for some layering..



..and using my Slice to cut some greenery to echo the tree in the background of the photo. It's a picture from Siver Jubilee year - have you found yourself going back to photos from past celebrations as we get ready to - party?

I hope you are all enjoying some nice weather wherever you are today, the sun is shining here and it's nice to see it!

I have one more layout to show using the May kit, if you haven't got one already it's now sold out but you can still buy the papers and stickers separately here.

I used some of the square stickers from the sheet inlcluded in the kit combined with some squares of patterned  paper and then made some bunting with the triangular stickers. The flowers were plain white which I coloured with scattered straw Distress Ink.

I also made a birthday card with the kit, I punched the butterflies from some different papers and then layered them up. The stickers behind the butterflies were also from the kit.

Pretty Party and a Pinata

Anyone else a big Crate Paper fan? I'd been looking forward to the arrival of the Pretty Party collection. It's pretty perfect! I was going to say that it's just right for this time of year - but while I wait for some Spring weather to appear here, I discovered that it looks good with Easter pictures too.

This is our Easter Pinata. We have discovered that teenagers who aren't so interested in the Easter Bunny do enjoy hitting things with a big stick. So we fill a pinata with mini eggs and chocolate limes and chewy bananas, they bash it open and then we divide up the spoils.

I made a fringed flower to echo the theme and cut some yellow feathers with my Slice. The doily was a gift from a friend.

You can find Pretty Party right here

More from the May Kit...

I'm back with another layout to share from the May kit. This layout features a photo of my Dad and my Uncle enjoying a trip to the beach when they were young boys. I think you can tell from their grins they must have been having a great time digging in the sand!

I only used a little bit of the patterned paper on this layout and added some of the Teresa Collins die-cuts that came in the kit. I coloured some white foam letter stickers with ink to change their colour for my title, a technique I saw in a recent edition of Scrap365.

Lily Bee also has some other lovely new ranges out at the moment which you can check out in the shop.

May Kit

It's kit time again (where does the time go?) and this month the kit contains papers from Lily Bee in pretty spring-like colours - blues, yellows and soft greys as well as some coordinating stickers and die-cuts from Teresa Collins. This is my first layout with the kit, the photo is my niece dressed up as an explorer (sadly I can't take credit for the lovely photo it was taken by a talented friend of my sister).

I had fun working out how to construct the folded chevrons/zig-zags for my page, I was pleased at how they turned out and they add dimension without being too bulky. I also used some zig-zags cut from card as a mask before spraying over some glimmer mists.

May's sneaky peek

Now this is cutting it fine .... but here it is the sneaky peek at May's kit which will be going on sale tomorrow - Thursday 10th - it will be on earlier during the day .. so keep checking.

 

It's Just Scraps

It's been a while since I've done a "scraps" for you. But with a kit as lovely as this, how could I resist? I wanted to use up every last little bit and this is what I made:

My inspiration for this page was actually a sheet of  Bazzill patterned paper. It has a line of labels and tickets done the right hand side and I thought it would be an easy trick to try so I used my Slice and a couple of punches to reproduce the effect. The strip on the left hand side is, of course, simply from the bottom of one of the sheets in the kit and the title is cut from the green cardstock in the kit. Give it a try!

More MME

I'm dreadful!!! I said, I'd share with you more layouts from Leanne & Lorna, and then totally forgot ... so here they are

Both used papers from MME - One the Bright Side.

Here's Lorna's

and Leannes

I'm so lucky to know both these lovely ladies ... and I'm always in awe of them at crops.  Both of them are so productive ... me, I'm always in Starbucks LOL.

Don't forget to stop by their blogs and say hello  ... My Little Blogette & My Little Life of Scrap

Introducing Alana

Let me introduce to you another talented Guest Designer joining the team, Alana ... she of "The Little Blue Shed" blog :) ... super talented and so such fun. (She made me say that :P)

Ok enough!, but it's true - Alana has such a lovely creative flair, which when you pop on over to her blog you'll see for yourself.

She's been working with Cosmo Crickets - Tea for Two, which I just knew was right up her street, and boy she doesn't dissapoint, that's for sure; what a gorgeous card

and of course with tea ... you just have to have cake :)

And that's not the end of it, ooohh no, no, no ... I'll be uploading another on the site in the next day or so. Told you she was talented :)

Lots and LOTS of new goodies have been arriving ... do check out the "new in" section on the site. With the likes of Amy Tangerine, Neapolitan, Elles Studio and today - Crate Paper, you won't be dissapointed, trust me.

Dear Lizzy..

..we think we love you. April's kit is here and it's a beauty! Dear Lizzy's Neapolitan sounds as good as it looks (or should that be licks?). This collection has been selling out all over the place, so I'd be quick - grab all the best bits while Sandra has a couple of kits left.

I made this one with the kit alone..

And then think about adding in a couple of lovely extras. Maybe the Tile letters? or the Ticket Flowers? So pretty!

...and this one with a few added rubons from my stash and lots of Slice cutting

March Kit

If you haven't seen it yet the March kit contains a lovely mix of papers from MME's Miss Caroline collection. I realy like the wood effect papers as a background for layout, so for this one I used the paper with the printed cluster of flowers in the corner and designd my layout around that.

I used some white embroidery thread to stitch around the edge of my circle and to add a flourish. The letter stickers are from Echo Park.

I also made a quick birthday card using a some scraps of papers and some plain black card.

There are still kits available to buy in the shop if you would like to try one, and if you would like to get a kit sent to you every month I see that Sandra has subscriptions available at the moment....

Sorry Clare ... jumping in again, on your post :) .... just to say that the April kit, will be on sale - Wednesday 11th.

Girls Allowed

We are completely loving the new Echo Park collection This & That here at Gotta Craft. Clare took Graceful and discovered that it wasn't just for girls. Now I've found out that you don't have to be a boy to be Charming

Choose carefully, add some white and a couple of little extras and Charming goes girly. Girls are definitely allowed.

New from Echo Park......

You may have noticed that Sandra has been uploading lots of newly released papers and other goodies in the shop over the last couple of weeks. Amongst many things that have caught my eye were some papers from Echo Park called This and That, so I have been using  papers from the Graceful collection to make a layout and card.

I have used several of the patterened papers on the layout along with some of the matching brads, chipboard pieces and stickers.

I love the green and pink colour combination so I also made a birthday card, the bird cage came from the sticker sheet and I cut a little bird from patterned paper to perch on the outside.

 

Although there is a lot of pink in the papers there are also some more neutral colours so I think they could work with a slightly more masculine page too, watch this space!

It's Echo Park and it's Charming

We're coming into my favourite time of the year for scrapbooking. How about you? The light is getting better, we're all getting out and about a bit more - and there is even a hint of Easter holiday in the air. When you put all of that together with the new CHA releases? Perfect.

As soon as I spotted the new Echo Park This & That I knew I had to get hold of some fast. And, of course, Sandra's delivery is always very fast, so it arrived the very next day and I made this: 

It's a layout about my nephew and I chose to use the Charming side of the collection. with blues and greens and yellows. You can see some stickers and brads in there :

and a chipboard button. The silhouette and the angel wings I cut with my Slice as a bit of a joke - they look as much like little devil horns as wings, I think!

..and that's "Charming". It looks like a collection for boys, and I do have lots of other ideas for boy pages; but I also think it will work in a more feminine way. Watch this space.

Kit News ... and a special offer

March's kit will be on sale later this evening, but I've realised that I never shared the sneaky peek with you .. how bad is that! ... so here it is.  Yes, I know... not that difficult to guess is it lol.

Anyway, I also wanted to let you know that at the moment, all Lily Bee products are on a special offer of 60% discount.  It will be ending soon - but also please note, in some cases stocks are very very low. So go on, grab yourself a bargain.

Not Just for Girls.....

The February kit was full of lots of pretty papers and I have to say all of my layouts made with it up until to now have featured my daughter and have been very feminine and soft. Being that I have a son as well I decided to see if I could use the papers in a masculine way to scrap a photo of him, so I teamed the Echo Park papers from the kit with some extra  kraft card to make this layout.

I used the sides of the papers that featured the geometric patterns, and the 'starburst' design on the layout was inspired by this project that I saw on 2 Peas recently. The letter stickers are Thickers from American Crafts. Despite the temptation to add a couple of flowers I went for some banner type embellishments instead!

New American Crafts

Oh my .... I can honestly say ... Dear Lizzy's Neapolitan collection is GORGEOUS .... pop on over and check it out. 

I will also let you into a little secret .... some of the papers will be in a monthly kit soon :)

Sadly, not everything I ordered from American crafts arrived - but hopefully, more will be arriving at the end of the month.

Cards vs. Layouts

Which do you do make first when you get a kit? Even though I love making both I probably go for layouts first and then see what I've got left over afterwards to make cards.

So following on from my layouts using the February kit I have some cards to share as well. For the first one I used one of the Glitz Design Whatnots from the kit with a pretty rose design, trimmed around it and then mounted it onto some card. I added texture to the white backing card with an embossing folder before colouring it with Distress Inks.

The next card I've already shared on the Gottacraft Facebook page, its a mix of pretty greys and greens and uses another one of the Glitz Design Whatnots. I used some plastic packaging for the centre of the frame which I embossed first.

This next card is quite simple, just some punched circles and a bit of patterned paper and finished off with some layered flowers. These were cut from plain card and then spritzed with some glimmer mists before adding some buttons from the kit to the centres. All I added was some kraft card from my own stash.

The last card is made up with some squares of the Echo Park papers left from the kit (there's not much of mine left now!) I added some sparkly vellum and used some punches to make a quick Anniversary card - I like to keep a couple of these at hand for those last minute panics!

I hope these cards give you some inspiration for ways to use the kit, let us see what you've created if you have been busy with your kits too. Thanks for stopping by!

This & That ... part 2

Yesterday I showed you the more girly side of Echo Park's This & That, latest collection and today ... here's the more rough & tumble one :)

This collection is called Charming ... and charming me, it sure is.  I adore the Rolleifex type camera image in it, as My Dad had one of those Cameras, so it brings back happy memories.  Anyway, here it is, oh and again, Echo Park has kindly done matching layered chipboard, chipboard accents and brads, which you can find HERE along with a collection pack, if you want it all ... and who wouldn't :)