Here I would like to share with you  my winning entries for the Best of British 2008 competition hosted by the British scrapbook magazine Scrapbook Inspirations brought to them and judged by Joanna Campbell Slan.

I was absolutely thrilled when I received the call from the magazine to tell me I had won and burnt off several hundred calories doing a happy dance round my house!! It is such a great honour to be chosen as one of the winners and Joanna's words are now firmly pinned up on my studio wall! I'm also honoured to be part of a very talented group of past winners.

A woman is like a teabag

This layout was inspired by the Eleanor Roosevelt quote 'a woman is like a teabag, you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water' It was in a book I was reading and I immediately knew it had to be a piece of scrap art! I had great fun doing it making the walls from daisy bucket papers, cutting out my wonky window frame, putting a photo behind it and inking everything severely!! The 'tea bag' is made from a shower scrunchy filled with chopped up brown paper and the arms and legs are from a magazine (I only wish they were mine!) The furniture, handbag and props are images from the internet and the clock is from etcetera. The rug is another internet image that I have gel medium transferred onto some canvas and fringed to make it 3d. The floor is papier mached newspaper pieces that I have then applied gesso over. A moment of madness layout that makes me smile!

Cornwall 2000

I'm really liking the new format of 12x6 and this is one Layout of a few I hope to do of a holiday we took my niece on in Cornwall 2000. I scalloped the edge to add a bit of fun and used bright blocks of coloured card to build up the background. I cut some of the photos out and doodled around them and handmade the embellishments drawing and colouring them then adding glossy accents.

Formal, Informality

A double page layout telling the story of a formal photo shoot that turned into a debarcle of giggles and silliness (well we had just had a very nice bottle of red wine with dinner!) The photo shoot is actually so perfectly us and reminds me of a really fun birthday cruise I went on, unfortunately hubby had to work on it but we had a good time! I kept it Black and white as it was a black and white formal night and added the row of hand drawn and coloured flowers for a colour lift and to reflect the 'funness' of the informality.

My crown is in my heart not on my head

This was inspired by the quote I found when making a fathers day card. A craziness of collage and paper dolls ensued! The background is built up from torn pieces of paper collaged together, including Basic Grey, Craft Creations and Rouge de Garance. I handrew and coloured the butterflies, flowers, bees, birds and heart and made paper dresses for myself, my mum, my sister and my 2 nieces. The stars in the sky are bits of mexican newspaper doodled round.

So sweet

Another Layout done in a new format 11.5x8. It's of me (oh yes it is!) in my favourite liquorice allsorts top. I've always liked this photo of me posing on the rockery and thought it would be fun to follow the 'sweety' theme through the piece of work so I cut out the photo and made a candy stripe background for it to go on cutting strips of coloured card and doodling on them. The grass is cut from scraps of green paper and finally I added some flowers cut from the metal of a coke can for that 70's retro feel.

This is Me

The inspiration for this me page came from the recent orange phone ad campaign, the one that starts I am because of.... I thought the idea and sentiment behind it was great and decided to write my own I am because of everyone. It was a great exercise in realising all the things that make me me! I cut my photo out and hand cut the frame drawing and doodling the embellishments and the title. I wanted to keep it quite simple so the words would be read properly. The rub on alphabets are love Elsie and doodlebug. The piece of work is A4 size, well I thought it would be different!!