End of Term

Today was the first day of school holidays for us here. Eventually had a lie in, though it was interrupted by Josh's alarm blaring out some sort of cacophony at 7am! Had a lazy morning before deciding to get my act together. I spent the afternoon and evening doing accounts *yawn* and wages *yawn* interspersed with the ironing *more yawns*!!

Tomorrow hopefully we will be buying new kids shoes (fingers crossed we can find some that are liked and that fit) and possibly having haircuts, will see how the time goes.

Saturday, if tomorrow goes to plan, I will be going to the crop at Hobby Horse. I really must get some photos and paper packs organised to give me a chance of achieving something useful whilst I am there. Though eating biscuits and chatting is good enough in itself :D

Now don't ask me why because I haven't a clue, but the end of term teachers gift thing almost passed me by this year. Huge panic at 10.30 Tuesday night when I realised I had forgot. Thank goodness for a 24 hour Tesco, though it's undergoing a bit of a refit so there wasn't the range of things in homewares or stationery I had hoped for. So I opted instead for little bottles of wine. A red and white for each of the teachers/assistants plus the very important (and very helpful) secretary. So I spent the next several hours decorating gift bags and making matching cards. Not the most fussy or creative things in the world, but given the timescale I had I was lucky to get them finished! And they (well at least the contents!) were very well received.





Patterned papers on the first four are Three Bugs in a Rug, on the fifth and sixth, SEI. The black/white spotty paper is Chatterbox. Stamps by Sandylion. Lots of Papermania stick on crystals to add some extra 'oomph'.

Color Combo #81

Just a quick post to say the new colours are up on the Color Combo blog. Really got me thinking these did! As ever, I left the page until the weekend to do, which wasn't the best plan as it happens as I have developed 'positional vertigo' - that horrid feeling of everything spinning just like when you have had too much to drink (which is why I don't drink much cos I don't like that feeling). Spent yesterday lying down, been to the doctor today for some anti nauseau tablets and just got to hope that my ear sorts itself out. It's blimmin' annoying me no end as there is a non-stop whooshing sound in my right ear and I feel sick and dizzy.

Hence putting together a page rather quickly for the challenge this week (sorry Janet!)

"I can't explain why - I just know that I think rhino's are beautiful."

Papers - My Minds Eye and KI Memories.
Due cuts - My Mind Eye
Chipboard letters - American Crafts
Journal frame stamp - Autumn Leaves
Misc flowers and crystal brads
Plus I used my corner rounder for the first time since ... I can't remember!

Stylish and Addictive

Thanks to Wendy who pointed the way to Wordle. If you like words and like procrastinating and tweaking things (!) go and have a look. I can see many happy hours playing on this. I'm sure my girls will love it too ... and I can tweak in some educational value on their part which is even better!

This is the one I created and put on the gallery, a commemmoration of Scrapbooking - Suzanne Style!



Anyhow, off to take my tablets (just the two, I have a way to go before I rattle like my Grandma did, I can remember she had a huge metal tray next to her chair on which were piled what seemed like dozens of bottles of pills for various ailments). And then off to bed. Got to get up an hour earlier in the morning to get the girls ready for a school trip to Bridington. Heck ... actually better pack up their lunch bags now because I am not a morning person and I am bound to forget things else!

Color Combo #80

Harrumphhh! Or however you spell it. Computers. Well email. Well actually sending email to be exact. Have been receiving emails fine all day but, for some reason, the sending part of the deal isn't being co-operative. But I didn't notice until gone 5pm when I was wondering why my page on the Color Combo blog wasn't showing. Well, it wasn't showing because my email with the attachment to Janet was still sat in my outbox folder! Like I said, harrumphhh!

So here is my page this week anyhow. I usually work with brighter colours than this but, once I started playing, I really loved the combination. The more muted colours work well with the mish mash of colours in the photos. I don't know about you, but, more often than not, I prefer to work with colour photos because I love to be reminded of the colour of decor or, in this case, particular clothes (Josh is wearing a Sweater Shop jumper, that's how old these photos are!).

Josh really wasn't overly fond of Playschool, it was much too regimented compared to the freedom at Mother and Toddlers (yep so imagine how he found school!) but he did enjoy some of the activities such as outdoor play, sand, trampoline, dinosaurs and train set.

I used Autumn Leaves papers, American Crafts felt Thickers, GinX rub-ons (yep working the old stash well this week!), 7Gypsies stamp and stickers, Making Memories printed mini tags, some printed twill and a few buttons. Font is 2Peas Ditzy.

Updating Slide Show Galleries

I have started to update my galleries for the slide shows in my sidebar on here. So far I have collated the Color Combos pages, layouts and cards (faves in the past year) which are in slide shows in the sidebar. The cards that I did for the 2 Peas World Stamping Week challenges are items 1-18 in the cards section.

My favourites though are here too:

This is a little box that contained a watch my daughter had for her 9th birthday. I retrieved it out of the recycling bag for the 'earth friendly' challenge. The papers are Scrapworks. The scallopy bit was cut on the Craft Robo and then the centre embossed with one of the new Cuttlebug embossing borders. I also treated myself to a new sentiments stamp set from Hero Arts; the Sending Sunshine sentiment is from that. The tags are made from the backing of a paper pad, dry brushed with white paint then wiped over with chalks (yes, chalks!), the reverse side of the Scrapworks patterned paper and stamped with stamps from Autumn Leaves (the flower), Hot off the Press (monograms) and the Hero Arts sentiment stamp again. Simply finished with American Crafts ribbon and some twine.




This card was made for a 'techniques' challenge combined with a 'sea' themed challenge. The background was created by blending Stazon onto a piece of transparency, swiping green Stazon upwards from the bottom, stamping (to represent seaweed and pebbles) and some Scenic Route fishy patterned paper. The air bubbles are brads finished with Stickles.




I am going to be putting together other galleries on slideshows which will be viewable by clicking on the links. At the moment only my Making Memories Idol projects have been put into this format. I will be adding in some of my favourite 'golden oldies' projects, my pages/projects for the (now ceased) Speshals (aka Collectively Yours) challenge blog and published stuff in other slideshows ... some time.

I also need to add the finishing touches to quite a few layouts which are sat in a pile on my desk and photograph them. I'm not so hot on the photographing pages malarky and it's one job I keep putting off. But I do like to have a record of them on the computer, flicking through them on here is a quicker way of refreshing my memory of the photos I have already scrapped than getting the albums out and flicking through them. Especially because so far I have put pages in albums in the order I scrapped them (which is so very not chronological) and also because I have about *ahem* 100 layouts just piled up on another desk in the corner actually waiting to be put into albums.

Color Combo Challenge #79

Oh heck, how long since I last blogged?! Seems like blogging is akin to dieting in that respect, the more I think I should do it, the less I do!

I have been scrapping, not so much, but I have been keeping up with the wonderful colour combos put together by Janet over on the Color Combos blog. This week was, unsurprisingly, based on the patriotic colours of red, white and blue. I tried to keep in with the patriotic theme too, but was totally limited to this one photo of a local memorial tower. Celebrating our nationality isn't something us Brits do at all well (if at all) other than on Remembrance Sunday which falls in November.

I did a digital page this week, constrained by lack of photos, me being ill and Chiara being ill. Even so, finding a digital poppy wasn't the easiest of tasks!



Erm, credits, will try my best but I am really not up to speed on keeping track of these things ...

Background paper and Paisley paper (recoloured) by Laura Sandford for Little Dreamer Designs (April colour challenge freebie)
Grungy overlays by Lauren Bavin for Digital Scrapbook Place
Poppy by Sue Wood, Poppyfields minikit
Ribbon by Kasia Designs, Birdsong kit

Very simple this one. I tried to add more stuff onto it, but it just didn't seem to suit the mood of the page at all. So after a couple of hours of faffing I went back to basics and let the picture and journaling do all the work.

Journaling:

The bright light from Crich Stand is etched in my memory from way back when. As I was growing up I would lie in my bed looking through the window at this light. Somehow I found it comforting. And yet, until recently, I knew nothing about it. I always thought it was a lighthouse to stop light aircraft crashing into the rocks it stood on! But now I do know what it is and what it represents.

The tower was dedicated in 1923 and is the regimental monument of the Sherwood Foresters regiment. And it is a Lanterne des Mortes memorial tower. Set in the top of the tower is a light which shines unfailingly each and every night in memory of all those men of the Regiment who gave their lives.

I think it is a beautiful and inspiring tribute and it makes that comforting light of my memories even more meaningful.

I will be back to upload more stuff. I took part in several of the World Stamping Week challenges on 2 Peas a couple of weeks ago. Aaagh! I knew it would be fatal! Rubber stamping is a whole new addiction :D