Well hello!  How was your Christmas and New Year break?  Happy New Year to you!  It went by pretty fast didn't it?  Blink and you'd just about miss it!  Yep, just like that, it's all over for another year.  We had a mini-break camping at Fairlie for a few nights, but the weather wasn't the best while we were there.  Having said that, it was nice to be away from home, and to chill out with our friends for a few days.

Today was a bit of a shock to the system, I had to go back to work for the first time since knocking off on Christmas Eve.  I must confess that the sound of the alarm this morning was NOT welcome. Oh well, needs must.  I can't finance this hobby of mine without a job!

Back to the job at hand... Have you seen the awesome Violet Crush range that Kaisercraft have released for January?  VERY cool.  Lots of lovely purples to play with, and some very cool print designs.

I borrowed some cute photos from a friend of mine for these layouts... She has a daughter that loves purple (and to be honest, my son wouldn't thank me for doing purple layouts of him, so thanks T!).  The layout above practically scrapped itself... the pre-printed specialty paper just needed some extra fussy cut flowers, some twine and a whole lot of stickles (glitter glue).  I also did a bit of random stitching with my sewing machine along the borders of the frame, just to add another texture to the layout.  

The other fun thing I did with this range was play with a bit of acetate.  You know, the stuff people used to write on for overhead projectors (if you're old enough to remember them?).  Acetate actually has a multitude of uses, and I can show you a couple here... First of all, when you have stickers that you want to use, but you might not want them to 'stick' straight away, or, like these butterflies, you might want to 'pop' their wings up for a 3D effect, stick them on acetate first.  Then you can play around with their positioning on your layout to your heart's content before you actually stick them on it for good.

So that's it from me today... a little bit of purple goodness for those of you who have been suffering purple withdrawal lately!  None of that woosy lavender colour, it's PURPLE baby!  Pop into the shop and grab some before it's all gone, I hear it's moving fast.

I will be back later in the month with a little bit of Art of Life.  Until then, be good!

Toodles, Beck x