Laura Rumble - Crafter

Hello!  Today I'm sharing a 9x12 scrapbooking layout using Lollipop Box Club's 'Secret Garden' kit.   I couldn’t wait to get starting with this kit; there is a delicate prettiness about the embellishments and a warm green tone to the overall colour scheme.   Both things I enjoy creating with. The typed snippets included in the treat bag have the sayings ‘a little birdie told me’ and ‘shh, it’s a secret...’   These immediately struck a chord with me as my budgie is always chatting away to me.   One of her most talkative times is just before she naps; it’s almost as if she is talking herself to sleep.   She gets quieter and quieter as she nestles down into my shoulder and then finally nods off.   These two snippets inspired the entire layout. I made a giant shaker pocket with a piece of the pink grid patterned paper and some white tulle from my stash.   I trapped the tissue paper flower confetti in between the paper and the tul...

Hello!  It's Stick It Down single sketch day... We are working with this sketch by Antonia this month. Here is my process video:  And here are some close ups of the details... Little clusters of stickers and die cut shapes over a vellum layer which creates a shaker pocket. The title is Beach Boy - which is about as adventurous as my titles get!  I've used Heffy Doodle stitched alpha dies and StickerKitten patterned papers. I am now in desperate need of 12x12 vellum.  It's almost impossible to find!  I still have enough sequins to last a lifetime though, haha! Please do create along with us using this sketch and link it up on the Stick It Down blog before the month is up.  Thanks for stopping by!

Seeeeequins! You know I love 'em!  And this star stripe cut file from Pretty My Page was screaming to be made into a giant shaker... I used sequins from SpiegelMom Scraps - busted 8 part used packs - and still haven't made a dent in my stash!! I kept everything else simple - I felt it needed it! I adore how it has turned out!

Just a quick share of a couple of videos that I haven't yet blogged... First up is this galaxy watercolour.  I'm pretty sure it will end up as a scrapbook layout but for now, I'm enjoying it as is. And this fun shaker page was part of Meggy's 5 Year Aniversary Hop. I scraplifted one of Meggy's December Daily pages from a couple of years back.  Got a few more packs of sequins used up!!

All sorts of exciting things are happening lately and I've gotten a little behind with sharing them here.  So here is a recap of my last couple of weeks... I am guest designing for White With 1 this month.  It made me chuckle as they have teamed up with Stick It Down this month so I ended up working with one of my own sketches! On the subject of sketches I now have a dedicated Instagram account for my sketches. I've blogged about stashbusting your sequin stash over on the StickerKitten blog . I'm also guest designing for Quirky Kits this month.  You can check out my first blog post here .  There is more to come from my Quirky DT stint and there will be a dedicated blog post here soon.  (I got "kit buzz" again!)  And I was on the Pretty My Page blog sharing this layout... I tend to keep my Instagram more up to date, I guess it is easier than writing a blog post, so be sure to follow me @beadsbuttonsandbirds Thanks for sto...

I'm combining prompts from For The Love Of Pretty Paper 's Summer Fiesta (make a tassel and use yellow), a sketch from SpiegelMom Scraps (by the very talented Suzanna) and this month's White With 1 challenge (Sunny Yellow and White) for today's layout... I tweaked the sketch by switching the square for a circle. I turned that cir cle into a giant shaker sunshine full of yellow sequins from SpiegelMom's. I 'fringed' (that can't be the correct wording!) some yellow cardstock and rolled it up to form a tassel.  I bound the top with some thread.  I'm not generally a huge fan of tassels but I can tell you they are very easy to make... I may have to use a few more! Thanks for looking!

All of the 'patterned paper' you see on this layout is actually a mail shot from Boden Clothing!  It was far too pretty to end up in the recycling bin so I popped it on my desk. I took a little strategic cutting and flipping of parts to cover the writing and expose the peach on the reverse of the mailshot. I added some stencilling with white pastes from Shimmerz in the background.  The stencil is from Pretty My Page .  The sequins were picked from recent SpiegelMom mixes to match the colours.  That's the great thing about mixes - if you buy three mixes you not only have those three mixes but the option for a huge range of other mixes too. I now I am biased but doesn't Henley look adorable here mid chatter?! Thanks for looking!

I've finally been able to bring myself to scrap photos of my sweet Herbie.  I had a couple of feathers from a Just Nick cut file on my desk and I just went for it.  I grabbed The Peacock Strut sequin mix from SpiegelMom Scraps and my watercolour palette. I like to use vellum for shaker pockets as it nice and firm but this time I wanted something very flexible.  I used some flimsy packaging - you do need the right kind of plastic though, as some don't get on with sewing machines!  Once I had my shaker made I marked on the background where my elements would go. I then added some pale watercolour washes beneath where they would lie so it would just peep out from behind.  To finish the layout I journalled around the edge - simple but elegant - rather like my Herb!! Thanks for looking!

Carrying on from last week's shaker pocket, this week is a shaker wreath for SpiegelMom Scraps. I had a relaxing time painting the wreath (which you can see in the process video) and loved the result.  It was hard to take a knife to it to cut the centre out!  I picked a muddy photo to scrap so I avoided painting the traditional floral wreath and stuck to greenery and leaves. I used some of my fave paper from Pink Fresh - it's the perfect shade of mustard.  I added a sprinkling of bugs! The ants are brads but because of the shaker pocket I cut the legs off and glued them on. I added a few journalling strips and called it done. You can find the sequins here!

This month's theme at Spiegelom Scraps is watercolour and shaker pockets, and this is my first DT piece of the month. I played around with some of my Daniel Smith watercolours on some 12x12 300gsm watercolour paper.  I buy a pad of 16x12 and trim the down to 12x12.  It also leaves two 4x6 or postcard sized pieces to practice on. I picked my sequin mix before deciding on anything else.  Authentic You has navy, teal, gold and peach sequins in lots of different shapes, sizes and finishes.  I pulled out some card and vellum from my stash to match. I fussy cut a couple of butterflies from a scrap of (Maggie Holmes?) patterned paper.  I cut the same shape out of mirri card twice and adhered the together.  The two gold layers are facing each other and reflected a lovely warm gold glow under the butterflies wings. I hoard pretty vellum so I'm quite chuffed I was brave enough to cut in to this sheet!  I love that it allows the watercolour ...