Hi Everyone,

The darker nights are creeping in so quickly now and I’m enjoying using them to get cosy and squeeze some crafting in.  The warm autumnal colours in this months Our Sweet Home kit are perfect for this time of year. I love the change it brings to my journal pages from the brighter summer pages! You can still pick up a kit here!

One of the prompts in the zine this month was to journal about a pet.  Usually I’d have gone straight to the dogs for that but this week we welcomed a new member into the family. Winter the Hamster!  We picked him up just before my kit arrived and it couldn’t have been timed any better!

I have a few sheets of 12×12 patterned paper that I’ve had for so long.  I don’t make a lot of scrapbook pages and I usually reach for a plain white background when I do so the patterned paper often gets left.  Not today though! I found this white with yellow/mustard dabs and thought the colour went well with the kit.  It was a bit bright so I used an old store card to spread some white paint over the centre area.  To break up the background I wanted to add some of the pink and green colour from the kit to it and used my watercolour paints.

I knew I wanted to cut out and stitch a big hamster to go on the page.  I have a Silhouette cutting machine but I always have the time I want to get it out and set it up so instead I find an image I like on Google and will roughly draw it on the kit papers I’ve chosen.  Once I’ve cut all the shapes out I use a glue stick to put them together on a sheet of thin white card.  I’ve started doing it this way as I find it easier to then stitch around the edge. After all my faffing around painting the backgroundI felt it was a bit too much so to break it up I drew a hamster wheel – a very basic rough hamster wheel but I was happy it was enough to break up the page a bit.

Winter’s been taking his time settling in so we don’t have many cute photos yet but I love this one of him poking his little face up to say hello!  I picked out the little house die cuts to use. I though they were perfect for a Welcome Home layout and used a mix of some other bits to embellish around the photo.  To finish off I made it so that I could slide the tag behind his little hands as if he’s holding it.  I added a little twine bow and will put my journaling on there!

I hope you’re all enjoying your kits and the cosier evenings too!

Vicki x