Sorry to followers of my blog for not posting recently. I have had so little time for crafting recently and sadly very little desire to scrapbook that I've not really had anything to post.

Sadly the Mojo Holder blog appears to have folded. I was honoured to be a member of the design team since July 2007 and I throughly enjoyed creating all the layouts during those two years. I will miss the girls on the team and think that the reason I've not scrapped lately is because I no longer have that 'push' or 'reason' to create. The last layout I created for Mojo Holder was one I was particularly proud of but unfortunately it never got to be uploaded to the Mojo Holder blog. The planned guest designer was to have been Christiane Muller. Here is Christiane's layout, followed by mine.

I used a mixture of papers from BasicGrey as well as a small piece of printed transparency. The butterflies were clipart downloaded from the Internet and printed onto acetate.

Before I sign off I just wanted to mention the TV programme 'Flash Forward'. Anyone who knows me will know what an obsessive follower I am of ABCs 'Lost'. I was imtriged therefore when I read about the new science-fiction television series - Flash Forward which doesn't just share a time-traveling concept with Lost, it is being billed as ABC's replacement for Lost which is set to end in May 2010. Well, I watched the first episode of Flash Forward last Monday and think I may just get hooked. So, If you haven't yet seen Flash Forward give it a go but be warned unless you watch the first few episodes I think (just like Lost) you may not have a clue what is happening in future episodes.

I've scrapped!

Its been ages since I've managed to do any scrapping. Its always difficult to scrap during the school holidays. But today I went to my crop at Stamp Addicts and managed put together two layouts and start a third.

Both layouts were created using mainly papers from My Little Shoebox.

The first is an almost complete scraplift of a layout by Alicia Geiss. I have only ever scrapped photos from my childhood once before and felt it was about time I used some more. When I was a child my Dad was a VERY keen amateur photographer and so we have literally hundreds of transparency slides of days spent on the beach, Christmas, birthdays, days out and just everyday activities. The photos I used were scanned from some of those slides and whilst the originals were coloured images I converted them to black and white for this layout which tells of or annual trips to Skeggy.



As well as My Little Shoebox papers I also used a sheet of BasicGrey for the background.

The second layout was based on another layout that I think I saw on 2 peas in a bucket. Unfortunately I can't remember who it was by and can't find it again. (When I find it I'll add the details here). I used some photos of Lara on the beach at Westward Ho!, Devon taken last month.



The background paper on this layout (the one with the clouds) was from K & Company.

Sorry I've not posted for a few weeks. We've just got back from a fortnights holiday in Devon. If you're interested there are daily photos on my 365 blog.

While I was away, two new challenges went live on Mojo Holder. Due to holidays there were technical problems with posting of last Fridays challenge but hopefully they will be resolved soon and that challenge will then go live.

On 7th August Challenge #121 was to scraplift a layout by Micayla Metcalf. Here's Micayla's layout followed by mine.





I used a mixture of papers. Some BasicGrey, some Scenic Route and some Bazzill Cardstock. I'm still trying to use up some of the mountain of older papers.

14th August Challenge #122 used a layout by my all time favourite scrapper - Kelly Goree. Kelly is best known as a fabulous designer for Basic Grey. The layout was a bit of a challenge but I was pleased with how my layout came out. Here's Kelly's Layout followed by mine.





I used BasicGrey Eva papers and chip sticker shapes.

Mojo Challenge #120

This week the Mojo Holder design team were fortunate enough to take its inspiration from renowned scrapbooker Jennifer McGuire. Jennifer is a Garden Girl at Two Peas in a Bucket and is also a member of the Hero Arts design team.

Here's Jennifer's layout, the sketch that Sarah produced, followed as usual by my layout.

Although its mid summer, I decided to create a snowy layout. LOL. I used a mixture of papers from Heidi Grace, Love Elsie and there was even a tiny bit of BasicGrey (well, there would have to be!!!). The snowflakes were from a packet of 'Swell Noel Layered Glittered Accents' by K & Co. I have used these on a couple of layouts before and they seem to go on, and on, and on - like the Magic Porridge Pot, the packet is never empty!

Mojo Challenge #119

Tonight the guest designer on Mojo Holder was Marjolein Bussink, a dutch scrapper who lives in Canada. Marjolein's style is so very different to mine. She loves vintage, mixed media, freestyle, and stamping. Although I was very much outside my comfort zone doing this weeks layout I did enjoy putting my own spin on it. Here's Marjolein's layout, followed by mine.

Mojo Challenge #118

On Friday the Mojo Holder DT used a layout by Kay Rogers as its inspiration. I was really thrilled that Kay agreed to allow us to use one of her layouts because I am a big fan. Kays layout used Fancy Pants papers. My layout used mainly BasicGrey with a little piece of Fancy Pants too. Here are the layouts - Kays first, followed by mine.





Do drop by Mojo Holder to have a look at all the layouts the DT created.

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 13

The final lesson in Jessica Sprague's Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects online course was all about creating a collage/grid using clipping masks, and then adding extra elements with a brush!

I used photos of the day we finally took the stabalisers of Lara's bike.



Then after mastering how to create to create the photo collage we had the extra challenge of concerting multiple photos to sepia tone, selective recolouring and adding type. Here's my second collage with those adjustments


And now the course is over. I really, really enjoyed this and would thoroughly recommend one of Jessica's courses to anyone. Her videos tutorials are excellent and so easy to follow.

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 12

Day 12 was all about a technique for framing up a set of photos into a storyboard. Jessica showed how to create a three-panel storyboard, including adding some text at the bottom.

Here are my storyboards

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 10 & 11

I had a busy day yesterday and so didn't get around to doing day 10's lesson until today.

The lesson for day 10 was a culmination of all we had learned so far. We learned how to create our own clipping mask from a shape, then add in our photo, two textures, a type overlay, some type in two fonts, and then finish it off with an edge burning technique. Phew ....... lots to do.

I've only had time to try this with one photo.

Before



After

Day 11's lesson was about Selective/Spot Recoloring. I had done this before using a different technique so it was good to learn another way.

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After

Before

After

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 9

Lesson 9 of Jessica Sragues Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects online course was all about edge burning - darkening the edges of a photo, while leaving the center of the photo light. The darkened edges are supposed to pull the viewer's eye subtly toward the center of our photo.

I'm not sure if the effect on my photos is too subtle though because you can't really see the difference!

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 8

Lesson 8 was all about how to use type on your photos in interesting ways. I was particularly pleased that this was todays theme because I've been trying unsuccessfully to put wording on photos in PSE for sometime, so to finally learn how to do it was great. Here's my efforts. They aren't brilliant - I probably should have taken more time to decide what wording and which fonts to use but having now learned the basics I think I will be able to experiment with the technique further in the future.

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 6

Todays lesson introduced a concept in photography circles, called "Through the Viewfinder". To get a worn, faded look, photographers will actually take photographs through the viewfinder of an old camera. The result is a photo with blackened edges, distortion, scuffs and scratches and marks. Todays challenge was to create an image using "Fake TTV" textures and then also add one or more techniques from the previous lessons (png word art, brushes, additional texture).

Here's what I came up with. Really enjoyed this today.

Mojo Holder Challenge #117

Tonight is Mojo Holder Challenge night. Challenge #117 was to lift a layout by Pearl Liu. Pearl lives in Singapore and designs for Di Hickman's Card Sketches and Such Sweet Tierney ( on Etsy ).

Here's Pearls layout, followed by mine.

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 5

Todays lesson was all about adding texture to a photo and also combining the previous techniques of adding frames and clipping masks.

Here are todays edited photos







Jessica did suggest not using "smiling at the camera closeup portraits" for this technique, and after using such a photo (last one above) I can see why. I don't think the result is particularly good, so I've learned from my mistake.

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 4

Lesson 4 was a nice easy one - Clipping Masks. A clipping mask is basically a shape - any shape - that you can "clip" your photo onto, to cause your photo to conform itself to that shape. For the course we used a rectangular clipping mask with scuffed-up edges, so the photo takes on a worn, aged appearance. Here's my effort.

Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects - Day 3

Todays lesson was all about a technique you can use to create a cool hand-tinted special effect for photos you'd like to add a soft, antique feel to. It was about Adjustment layers and Blending Modes. I had never head of these before doing the course.

As well as adding an antique effect to photos the projects also built on the previous days lessons and included adding a frame and where appropriate some soft glowy stars with a brush.

Here's some of my photos before and after. The photos probably weren't the best for this lesson but I liked the effect anyway.