Sunday 31 July 2011

What was I thinking????

I have had a gorgeous week in North Devon, the weather has been amazing. This is our third year in a row that we have packed the car with everything, including the kitchen sink.
As you might know I was worrying about how I was going to spend my evenings and I had asked for suggestions (thank you Laurie & Sandi), I packed a small amount of supplies and printed off the prompts from Shimelle's Explore Class. I am not sure what I was thinking, I got nothing done!! All that fresh air and hours on the beach, made sure that I was in bed by nine thirty every night.

Yes that's me, bodyboarding! When you get the right wave that carries you all the way back to shore it is an amazing feeling.

As for Shimelle's class, I am very behind but I hope to change that this week, I did manage to send myself a couple of postcards (much to my DH's amusement), they were waiting on the doormat when we got back this morning. I used some free postcards from a lovely pub that we visited last week, must admit I wasn't sure about the whole postcard thing, the last postcard I sent was ten years ago on my honeymoon, so writing one to myself felt a little strange, but I liked seeing it on the doormat, so maybe I might send myself a few more. Must remember to use second class stamps next time :)


Hopefully by the end of this week I will have some crafty news, but it is the school holidays so we shall have to wait and see. I am off to go spend the last couple of hours with DH before he has to go back to work, if only holidays lasted a little longer :)

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Trying Something New

We are on a massive countdown in our house, my DD has three days left at school (hooray!) and as a family we have three days until we go on holiday. I can hear you saying "what does that have to do with trying something new?" Well we are going to a lovely place that has no access to internet, this is brilliant as it means that my DH will not be able to take his work with us (big hooray!) and it also means that I have to find something to occupy myself of an evening, hence trying something new. I can't easily scrapbook, so I need to find something to do, I am thinking of trying knitting or crochet again, but in the past that has not worked out so well. Any suggestions would be great.

Also on the theme of trying something new I have just paid for my first online class. I am hoping that I will be able to fit it in around our holiday and the school holidays, will let you know how I get on, am currently waiting for my first email!

I have been trying to branch out with my scrapping, I love the sketches at Let's Scrap but a girl needs to try something new (look at me sticking to the theme of this post). I have just done two pages that are totally all me. I have kept them quite simple (not trying something new there), but I have cut papers, inked & stamped.

This page uses My Minds Eye papers, I also managed to get the coordinating stamps in the sale. I kinda like having no title for once, but it does have journalling.


This is the LO that I tried to download last post. I have let the papers do all the work, I think that they make a great frame for this photo.

I have not gone completely cold turkey on Let's Scrap, let's be honest who can resist a challenge? Last weeks challenge was to replace a letter in the title of your page with something else. I replaced the O in together with a flower.

Here is the full LO, this is one of my favourite photos of my little family. I really liked this challenge, it enabled me to get those stamps out.


This weeks challenge was to use stitching on a LO. Love stitching, it is something that I can do of an evening sat on the sofa. I used Fancy Pants papers (another challenge on Let's Scrap is to use Fancy Pants), I have never used them before so I made a sneaky purchase.


And this is my entry for the Fancy Pants challenge, not sure if I am able to enter both LO's, will just have to wait & see.


I am trying to finish a couple of LO's before we go away, again on the trying something new theme, I have followed another scrappers blog to Once Upon A...Sketch, the ladies on here do some amazingly beautiful layouts. They have some fab sketches on there to use, I am not sure that I am brave enough to post anything on their site, but I am brave enough to have a go. Will post my LO's next time.

So yes I am branching out, still scrapping but trying to move out of my comfort zone. Definately need to find something other than scrapping to occupy me over the holidays, think I will do a search now, fancy something to make. Let's hope the weather improves for our holiday. See you in a week :)

Thursday 14 July 2011

It's a family affair

Last weekend was the Eclectic Keepsakes crop and this month I had company, my Sister Liz tagged along. Liz got married last year and in my excitement in the run up to the big day I found a scrapbook wedding album and kit. Liz had an amazing photographer for her big day, who took hundreds of fabulous photos and Liz wanted to finally start on her album. Liz has never scrapbooked before, so it was a learning curve for her.

As always the ladies at Eclectic Keepsakes made us feel very welcome, it was a small session this month, I think that lots of the ladies were on holiday, with this in mind Karen decided not to do the class, which worked in our favour as we got to do more work on Liz's album (she has ALOT of photos).

This is Liz working on one of her pages, together we worked on eight pages and I have instructions from Liz to carry on, it will be a work in progress over the next few months. I think that Liz enjoyed herself, she said that she would come again which is a good sign. It was just nice hanging out with my baby Sister and doing  something that I love.


So I did none of my own layouts at the weekend, but I did make cupcakes for my Dad's Birthday, I used a recipe from a blog that I found mentioned in a book. The blog title is The Caked Crusader and if you love making cakes or if you just love cake you should check it out. I made Spiced beer cupcakes with honey buttercream, I was drawn to this recipe as the caked crusader used Adnams, which my Dad loves. The recipe was a hit with my Dad :)

So last weekend was all about family which was lovely, I know that my Mum and Dad love it when we all get together, I am glad that we could make their weekend.

Tuesday 5 July 2011

Final June Total

Welcome to July and if you are like my daughter you are on count down to your holidays (she has two & half weeks to go). I have been luckily enough to sneak in some holidays early this year, two just this month, with that being said I have managed to do twelve! yes twelve layouts this month. I also managed a birthday cake for my niece, luckily for me she wanted exactly the same cake as Ella, so I was able to reuse the figures that I used for Ella's cake.

Back to my layouts, while I was away I missed the adtml crop I am hoping that I will be around for their next one. I have in my own time attempted a couple of the challenges & sketch. I really enjoyed Mel Hand's challenge, which had an interactive opening section. I had never attempted something like this before and I really enjoyed the challenge.

I didn't have the magnetic closure for the flap, I used ribbon instead, I also didn't have the Fancy Pants papers that Mel used, I used My Minds Eye. The photo below is with the interactive section closed.


The next photo is with the section open. I made the flower (love them) and the other embellishments were a freebie off a scrapbooking magazine ages ago.


Below is the sketch challenge from the ATDML crop.


And here is my take on the sketch, I did something new for me and attempted to use glimmer mist. I am still trying to get to grips with it, but I guess the more I practice the better I will get (exactly what I was telling Ella earlier), so expect to see more glimmer mist in future layouts. I used some gorgeous Kaisercraft papers, which when I got them I hadn't realised that I had ordered the 6x6, so this layout is perfect for the smaller paper size. Another "made by me" flower and some left over alphas from the last crop I went too and there we have it.


My third layout used a sketch from the sketches 2 scrapbook app. This app is so user friendly and so convenient. I used more of the Kaisercraft papers.


I would show you my fourth layout, but the computer is not playing ball, so it will have to wait for next time. Nearly forgot, the exploding box that I posted last time for the Let's Scrap weekly challenge won, hooray!

This weekend is the Eclectic Keepsakes crop, woo hoo! For a new twist I am taking my Sister, Liz with me. Liz got married last October and wants to scrap some of her wedding photos, this will be her first time scrapping, so I hope that she enjoys herself. It would be great to have another scrapper in the family. I will tell you how we get on in my next post. Hope you have a great weekend x