feburary-blog-hop

                                                             Back To........

Hi everyone, thank you so much for coming to visit. You have arrived at our February Blog Hop. If you've come from Kerry's blog,  at Kerrys Creative Collection then you are on the right track. In these blog hops, if you ever get lost and want the full list of blogs, just hope over to Alisons at Scissors Paper Heart
It's a while since my last post, I guess Ive had a bit of a blog holiday. But not a papercraft holiday. This months blog hop theme is 'Back To', as in 'back to school', or something similar. Now I have to admit that this theme really did stump me for a while.
Both my son's are now finished school, so there was no 'back to school' photos to scrapbook. I couldn't think of any other 'back to' theme. Then it hit me.
Since moving into my new house in October, I have really got back into my scrapbooking in a BIG way. I had really been neglecting my photos and pages, instead making and designing cards, doing workshop prep, and lots of other off the page projects.
Ive also even been playing with Close To My Heart's water colour paints. Ive been having heaps of fun priming canvas, playing with our water colour paper, and even been giving drawing a go with our fantastic watercolour pencils.
The upshot of all this creative expression was that I was neglecting my scrapbooking. Its the whole reason I joined Close To My Heart in the first place, I fell in love with their fantastic, great quality paper range and couldn't wait to scrap with it.
So after moving and gaining the most amazing craft space, I got back into my scrapbooking with a vengeance.
What fun I had with all my photos spreed out in front of me, and all my craft supplies around me in the shelves.
The wonderful thing about Close To My Heart is that they have heaps of things to make my scrapbooking easy. When inspiration was waning, I would look in the Make It From Your Heart, How To series of books  and get ideas for page patterns.
All the papers are colour co-ordinated, so its easy to put together a very professional page, easily and quite quickly.

 I have used the new Sangria paper pack, with Champagne paper as a base. These colours are super vibrant and really add an easy 'pop' to any page layout.

 I have used a retired 'My Crush' book page which I pulled out of the book. I used that page as a photo mat, I think it really adds a bit of interest to my page.
These are just a few of the many, many pages I have been putting together recently. As I said before. because all the Close To My Heart's papers co-ordinate, its very easy for distracted people like me to be 'creative' with my layouts.  

This is a canvas I painted using Close To My Heart water colour paints. It was sooo much fun. I intend to do lots more of these. I just kept layering the paint until I got the desired mottled effect. Then put on a Cricuit cut saying on top to finish it off. Its now displayed on my craft room wall.

This is a small section of my huge new creative craft room space. Im so happy in that space, it makes it easier to play at short notice when I have everything arranged in order.
Thank you so much for coming to my blog and having a look at what Ive been up to lately. I hope you are enjoying the blog hop. If you would like to have a look at Close To My Hearts wonderful, versatile range of craft products, please hop on over to my website at Julies Shop 
Please go on over to Wendy's Blog and have a look at Paper Ink Bling her ideas.
Happy crafting everyone.