Catching up...

Two weeks ago I went to my monthly crop and was so in love with the papers and design chosen by the wonderful Ann Freeman. 

The pages shown are double sided, and as always I was thoughtful about what photos to take for the crop.

Although these papers lend themselves to Valentine's Day I decided to use photos of my daughter and her new baby, Wren.  I printed them in black and white, and was SO pleased with the end result.  I think this double page spread is possibly my favourite of all the scrapbook pages I have done so far. 

The papers are Echo Park 'Be Mine'.  The papers show as peach but are actually a beautiful  pink.

I think you'll agree that they are absolutely gorgous and perfect for my first scrap page of Wren.  Ann is a very talented designer and again I had to overcome my phobia of cutting up gorgous papers, but I am beginning to see the benefit!  If you look at the two photo frames in the finished pages you can see that the rectangular one started as a tag, and the other framed a bird in a cage (see the first photo above). 

Not wanting to waste the beautiful scraps I used the bird in a cage on a Valentine's card for my husband.  You might also recognise the pink floral semi circle, left over from the central piece.  Ann taught how to distress the edges, how I love the effect it gives!  I love shabby vintage and these papers couldn't have made me happier! Luckily there were some spare sets of papers so I just HAD to buy some to stroke and look at, but I really will make myself use them.  I am planning to challenge myself more and not to keep buying new papers until I use some of my huge stockpile. It will be interesting to see how long I keep to this as I am off to a Stich & Creative Crafts Show on Thursday.  It seems ages since I went to a show, so I am very much looking to a day out.  It's always good to see new products and new ideas. 

I hope you have had a relaxing weekend.  Time now to eat and watch tv.  Simple pleasures!