Barcelona Photos.

I won't bore you with too much blurb or too many photos but I thought I would show you a bit of what we saw in Barcelona last weekend. It seems like as age ago already!
Barcelona is famous for, amongst other things, its architecture particularly that of Guadi. I have to say it is like nothing I had ever seen before, I felt a bit like I was in a Dr Suess book it was so amazingly wacky! This is one of the houses that he designed, the facade is just stunning and the inside is amazing too.

This was one of my favourite places that we visited, Parc Guell, which again has a lot of Guadi architecture. Apparantly the park was meant to be a residential development of 70 homes but only 3 plots sold (1 to Guadi himself) and then the owner died. The government bought the site and it is now a public park.

Justin and the mosaic snake at the entrance to the park.

It seemed really strange to have a beach and marina in a city, there were loads of mullet and jelly fish in the water.There were two of the buoys in the marina, I thought they were great.

The lift in our hotel was full of mirrors which were great for playing with my camera, I managed to get a couple of photos of the two of us together using the mirrors!

A lot of people had told us to look out for the human statues, there were loads! Some of them weren't very good but some of them were amazing. I took loads of photos of them but here is one to give you an idea, I thought he was pretty good!

Another photo of the marina.

I will try and pop a few more photos of the architecture on here over the next few days, there were so many interesting and beautiful buildings. I know that everyone who has been to Barcelona raves about it and I can see why now it really is a beautiful city and there is so much to see and so much going on around you all the time.

TFL

xx

Barcelona!

Justin and I had a wonderful weekend in Barcelona, it is a gorgeous city and so hot ( I love the heat but Justin wasn't so keen!) I took my camera everywhere and ended up with in excess of 1000 photos!! A lot of them aren't any good but there are some worthy of putting on a scrap book page I just need to go through them all. When I have done it I will post more on here.
We met an American couple on one of the days and they took this photo of the two of us together just to prove that we actually did go together. That is the problem when there is just two of you, it is very hard to get photos as a couple.

When I choose scrapbook papers I always seem to go for papers that are quite girlie, I guess that has got a lot to do with having two girls! Sarahs Cards July kit isn't very girlie but I absolutley loved it, such a gorgeous combination of colours and it worked perfectly with photos of the girls.

TFL

xx

Another Canvas

This canvas nearly got thrown away in my room reorganisation as it was pretty battered but now I am glad that I didn't! I wanted to create some more wall art for my craft room, I had intended to add some words to the centre but then ended up adding a photo. I am really pleased with the way this one turned out.
Justin and I are off to Barcelona on Friday which is very exciting it is somewhere that we have wanted to go for a long time. I can't wait to take photos of the city, it will be my first proper outing with my new camera! We are going to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary (well that is the excuse anyway!!) and the girls are staying home with Nanny. My next post will no doubt be full of Barcelona holiday photos.
TFL
xx

Butterfly Canvas

For anyone who has read my blog before you already know that I love using butterflies on my scrapbook pages. I keep seeing these gorgeous pictures and canvases covered in lots of butterflies and flowers (check out the papermaze blog) so I thought I would have a go at creating my own. I have used more of the Prima papers that I used to cover my desk organiser which have a lovely vintage but pretty feel to them. I painted the canvas with pale pink acrylic paint before I started as the white was too stark against the papers. The result is definitley not as good as some that I have seen but I am quite pleased with my little effort!

I am actually really enjoying just fiddling around with paper and glue creating some different projects which don't need any thought about titles or journaling!
TFL
xx

Have you seen?

I am not usually a huge fan of Sassafras papers but I was looking at some of the CHA sneaks and came across this range and absolutley love it, very girlie vintage.

TFL

xx

A Walk In The Park

Have you seen these gorgeous new papers by Echo Park? There are two ranges, A Walk In The Park and Sweet Summertime, they are both full of lovely summery papers. If you fancy winning a set of both papers Sarahs Cards is running a blog giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment on the post before midnight on Sunday and a winner will be chosen at random on Monday. Sounds good to me!!

Rebecca is away on a German exchange at the moment and I have been really missing her, she and I spend so much time together it has felt really strange not having her here. The next best thing to having her around has to be to scrap photos of her! I love this photo, she was checking to see if the buttercup showed that she liked butter. I kept the page really simple just adding a few embellishments, I have used papers from the Walk In The Park range. This background paper has got to be my absolute favourite at the moment, corrugated cardstock!

I really love this Tim Holtz tattered floral die, each flower has been run through an embossing folder and then layered up.

TFL

xx

Nearly Finished!

Well after lots of hard work my craft room is nearly finished! I am so pleased with how it has all come together and I have got so much more space not just for storage but also working space. I really wanted to have a work station area where I could keep the sewing machine (which had previously lived on the floor!) and the cricut making them much easier to access and use. The little buckets above the desk contain my cottons and bits and pieces, I need to get another couple of the metal bars and plastic buckets at some point.The shelf looked rather plain so I created some simple bunting from some old scenic route papers that I had been saving for ages. I wanted to try and tie the green of the boxes into the room a bit more so added some green into the bunting and framed two green layouts to stand on the shelf. I have added some old boxes and a bucket that I already had but I need to get some more small storage baskets to fit onto the shelf. As you can tell I still have quite a list of things to get to totally finish the room!

When I was at Ikea I bought this desk organiser, as nice as it is in its natural state it was crying out to be prettied up a bit.

I created templates for all the surfaces out of white cardstock.

I used some gorgeous Prima papers to cover each of the templates in a patchwork design. I inked all the edges to made them more defined.

I didn't want any of the wooden edges to show so I have painted them with some pale pink paint.

I stuck all the covered templates onto the organiser and it just needs to be given a coat of varnish (which I have ordered!) to make it more hardy and long lasting.

It is the perfect place for keeping my note paper, tiny alphas (of which I seem to have loads) and bits and pieces.

Thanks for popping by to have a look.
Rachael
xx

Craft Room Update

After a lot of hard work my craft room is finally beginning to take shape! Our trip to Ikea was great and I got everything that I wanted (plus a few extras!!) I was very organised and had listed the location of everything that I wanted before we went. It was Rebecca's first trip to Ikea and she absolutley loved it, she was busy planning what her house is going to look like when she moves out!

Justin was very lovely and put the expedit together for me when we got home while Rebecca and I put all the storage boxes together. There is so much space it is wonderful, I had toyed with the idea of buying the smaller one when I was there but I am so glad that I didn't.

I wanted to try and utilise as much of the storage that I already had, the small cropper hoppers were just too tall to fit into the gaps so I trimmed off the tops with a pair of strong scissors. They hold some of my cardstock.

I used to store the majority of my papers in these 12x12 stacking shelves which are the perfect size to fit into the expedit. I debated about how to sort my papers, into colours or manufacturers, I decided that it would suit me better to have them in manufacturers. I have also created a sections for background paper, templates, and transparencies. I was really strict when I sorted all the papers out and have a huge pile to pass onto my Mum (it has also meant that I have a couple of empty shelves ready to accomodate new papers!!)


I labelled all the storage boxes with black dymo tape which I thought would show up more than just hand written labels. I have tried to think about how I have stored my stash to make it as user friendly as possible, the storage boxes are great and even the smallest ones hold a good amount. There are boxes for jounaling, vintage, thickers, bling, embellishments, glues, flowers, promarkers .......the list goes on! In the large boxes I have put all my old packets of photos, I want to go through them all and sort them into time periods which should make it a bit easier to look for certain photos. I have also dedicated one to my paper scraps, before they were all mixed up in a drawer but I thought if they were organised into bags of certain colours it would make them a lot more usable.

The other side of the room isn't finished yet as we needed to get some different fixings for our walls, hopefully in the next few days I can show you the finished article. My aim is to have a work station type area where I can keep out the sewing machine and cricut to make them easier to use and have some shelving to store more little bits and pieces.

One thing sorting out my stash has shown me is that I have a massive pile of untouched kits.....again! I did really well a while ago and didn't have any pizza boxes on my floor but they seem to have crept in again. I think I might just have to take the kits apart as I tend to forget what is in the boxes. That can wait for another day though!

TFL

xx

Scrap Room Overhaul

When I started scrapbooking I used to keep my stash in a set of drawers in our study and get them out each time I wanted to scrap taking them into the dinning room. I think like most scrappers my stash soon outgrew my little drawers and we decided to turn our newly decorated spare bedroom into a craft room. (well I think I decided and Justin went along with it!)
I thougth that one day we may need to turn the room back into a bedroom so I have been hesitant to fix anything to do with my craft storage to the walls......until now!
I mentioned to Justin the other day that I needed to buy another set of drawers as my stash mountain had grown once again, he said why don't you get someone in to do it all out properly! Now I wasn't going to let that comment pass by so I have jumped at the chance, I have spent the last few night browsing through the Ikea book and deciding what I need to create a more workable space. We are off to Ikea tomorrow and I am so excited, I can't wait to be able to sort through all my stash and get it organised. I have to say my main source of inspiration has been Sarah Youdes craft room which is just divine!
Last night we moved my old georgian chest of drawers into Rebeccas room and pushed all the rest of the stuff onto one side of the room. I am going to keep the pine table but I want to add another desk so I can have my sewing machine and cuttlebug out all the time, a bit of a work station.
Anyway here is a photo of all of my scrapping clutter (minus the loo rolls...not sure why they are there!) that has to be sorted and organised.
This cupboard is full of my little treasures but it is going to have to make way for an Expedit unit, such a sacrifice!

Hopefully by early next week my little room be finished and I can show you the finished product! I cannot wait!

I have been sat looking through old photos on here tonight and found these two of the girls which I just had to share with you. They both look soooo cute.

TFL

xx