Enfield Scrapmates

I woke up at 5.30 this morning with an awful headache.  Felt a bit sorry for myself, took a couple of tablets and packed my bags for Ann Freeman's crop at Enfield Scrapmates.  Because we all know that the perfect antidote for feeling under the weather is a day of relaxation and creativity! Happy to report that by the time I was 24 miles from home and safely arrived at the hall, the headache had gone and I was ready for some scrapbooking.

To start with I made a page from a layout that Denise had designed for a EK crop that I had missed in the summer.

There are so many elements to this page that I love, the fancy border punch which turns a plain strip of paper into a thing of beauty; the paper flower in the bottom left corner which is a series of three petalled flower shaped stamps that you layer up but most of all - those lovely canvas resist butterflies from Prima.  They start life as plain white, kind of calico textured butterflies but when you spritz them with Glimmer Mist, or stamp them with ink, they transform with the colour absorbing into the background and the pattern resisting the dye and  leaving a lovely contrast.  I was stuck for a title for this one, and after a few unsuitable suggestions from Denise (all with a play on the word Peak), we came up with the highly original 'Peak District 2012'.

Next up was the class that Ann had designed:

A perfect example of how you can use up small pieces of paper and turn them into a fun layout. I made the mistake of not letting the ink dry on the edges of the papers before sticking them on the white cardstock and there are various smudges that could not be hidden by embellishments.  Ann had very kindly provided lunch for us: pasta with tomato and Mediterranean vegetable sauce. Being a sometimes messy eater, I did well to remember to turn the half finished page over before tucking into my bowl of food.  I had enough trouble with ink splatters, without having to worry about splashes of tomato sauce!  The title for this one:  'Let sleeping dogs lie' was much easier to come up with.

I always struggle to come up with titles for my pages and yet other people seem to find really witty, catchy things that suit their pages perfectly. I guess it's just that some pictures immediately lend themselves to catchy captions.