Merry Christmas

I haven't done much Christmas crafting this year because I have been recovering from a nose op to hopefully stop my sinus pain! Well it's been over two weeks since the op and it is now Christmas Eve so I think I am a little to late to do any now. Looking at some of the photo's of the tree this year I remembered about this little Christmas craftiness. Robert's 1st Christmas bauble. It was really easy to do, Just write with a metallic pen onto a clear bauble and you have a really pretty Christmas decoration. It would make a really quick and easy gift for a friend or relative with a new baby. Like many households we have our traditions for Christmas and Robert hanging this from our tree every year is just one of them. He's 14 now!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

New Craft

After many attempts by my mother to teach me to crochet, I am finally on my way. Admittedly I'm a bit slow at it and quite often forget which stitch I'm doing or how to do it but I'm getting there. I can do double crochet and treble crochet but beyond that I'm struggling at the moment. I'm more of a 'show me' to learn type of girl and those crochet patterns are really not help full! The Attic 24 blog is really cool if you are interested in trying http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/(I dream that my efforts may look like hers one day). But in the mean time I'm practising squares to make a blanket......or maybe a scarf as it's taken two weeks to make three squares! Whatever it turns out to be it's a sort of Neapolitan Ice-cream crochet, check out these lush colours!

Friendship

I thought I would ring the changes and show you all a layout that isn't from my hols. This one is about how I'm really pleased that my son has found a really good friend in Archie who always supports him, have fun and makes him laugh. Played with some splattered gesso across the page and then layered a dictionary page, a paint chart and a printed overlay and then finished with a red paper clip, A mario 'shroom' (as Robert calls it) and my favourite-staples.

Us 3

Finally managed to have enough daylight to photograph some more layouts. Another from our hols, an unusual photo of all three of us together. Used Cosmo Cricket Earth Love and Bo Bunny Coral Dot papers. First chance to use my Martha Stewart Punch. Really like this punch, very easy to use with it's paper guides. I Also used a chipboard butterfly painted with Blonde Moments Lustre and crackle glaze. An old tag from some jeans and a heart pin finished off the look.

Perfect

What is a perfect end to a long hot day hiking in Slovenia? Cake and beer of course. So here's another layout from my summer holiday. Used some gorgeous K & Co glittered 'Margo' card stock and a couple of my beautiful purchases from VV Rouleaux - the stripy candy coloured ribbon and shocking pink butterfly. For the finishing touch I attached a wire butterfly trail beaded with pretty pastel beads.

A Walk too far

So where was I.....oh yes it seems only yesterday I said I would be posting more holiday layouts and before I know it a month has gone by. But in my defence it's been super busy at school, lots of crafty projects and a week away with the year 6 to Devon experiencing surfing, climbing, zip wires, kayaking and lots more bruises. Any how here's a layout about a walk to a waterfall that ended up in just a little to far and tricky. But fab photo's of Robert chillin next to the cascading water. Used diamond glaze on the butterfly stamp and inked Thickers alphas, lots of gems My Minds Eye and Anna Griffin papers.

Relax

Rest, refuel and relax.....a snapshot of a day in Slovenia. The other snapshots will consist of beer,cake, ice-cream, walking, cycling, waterfalls,mountains and bruises! Well I didn't take a photo of the bruises (received when braking on a bike that had too sharp brakes).

But now it's back to reality and work.....ugh. So here's the first layout of the holiday pics Using Bo Bunny Beau Jardin Wine paper, Making Memories Passport range fabric tag and lots of buttons. If you like, leave a crafty goodness message.

Rocky Road

Nearly time for our annual summer holiday and I soooo can't wait. I so need this holiday and looking forward to the familiar views of Kranska Gora in Slovenia. We just love this place and it's not just the cakes, beer and the Milka chocolate but the village has a really comfortable feel to it. We still like to visit new places and last year tried Slovakia (yeah we are trying all countries starting with S). Being at such a higher altitude the views from the top of the mountains were stunning but it was just too rocky to have a pleasant walking experience. Hence back to Slovenia as the other European alpine countries (Austria, Switzerland and Italy are just too expensive. Anyhow back to scrapping, here's a layout about Slovakia's rocky paths that was featured in this months Scrapbook Inspirations on the readers page. Love the natural tones I used and the naked alphas inked with a Stazon ink (because I'm too lazy to get the paint's etc out). Well back to planning our walks and cycling routes for the holiday......have you ever tried cycling up 1000 foot gravel path, it's not easy!

Candy Cakes

Couldn't stop myself from smearing my face against this cake shop window when we spotted it on a recent trip to Covent Garden. Not only where the cakes a sugar addicts dream but the pretty pastel coloured window and frontage was just too dreamy not to be scrapped. It made a good excuse to use pink in a layout for a change. Loved the Bo Bunny Blush Dot and the K & Co Citronella Cloudy papers. Don't know if you can see in this photo of the layout but you can see our reflections in the window. There's me taking it, Nigel looking away waiting patiently, Archie (Robert's friend) coming back to see what we are looking at and Robert's face beaming while eyeing up which one he wants. A happy accident of a photo.

Smile it's the holidays!

Well not quite the summer holidays yet but 4 working days and counting. It's been a really busy two weeks at school as we have been doing extra activities because it's near the end of term and because of our 'Health and Well Being Fortnight'. Managed to introduce my year 4 class to scrapbooking this week. The challenge was to make an A4 layout on 'Things that make me happy'. Had a sort out of all my scrap patterned paper and took in my flower punches. Other than those supplies I tried to show them a layout using only school stock. We had Lot's of raffia and sequined waste, so that was good. I also raided B&Q at the weekend for paint charts for our journalling. A good time had by all.

So as it's nearly end of term I made my thank you cards for colleagues who either I need to thank for their support or time in the gardening club, cycling courses etc. Or colleagues who are also friends and deserve to be reminded how I treasure their friendship and make work a good place to be on those stressful days.

So here they are...............

By the way to all you parents out there, T.A's hate being called 'The Helper' because as you can tell we do so much more, usually in our own time. (sorry to moan but it's the end of term feeling!)

Robert @14

Finally photographed some of my recent layouts. This was Robert enjoying his carrot birthday cake back in May. He's a funny boy at times, here's me thinking I could get away with a brought chocolate cake from the supermarket, but oh no Robert has other ideas. He wanted carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, no problem, got out my Mary Berry Cake Book (the baking queen in my opinion) and it was finished in a flash. Finished it off with a sparkler as we sang happy birthday but I didn't know you had to have special indoor sparklers, so hoped that the grandparents couldn't notice the ash from the sparkler (what with the poor eyesight). Anyhow had fun glittering odd chipboard alphas (loving the glitterness but not the mess, look like I've been to a 70's disco night with it all stuck to my face). Used the Core Definitions Card stock for the first time, wasn't really that impressed with it. Maybe I need to be more rougher with it. Any suggestions let me know. Talking of letting me know, please feel free to leave kind comments. it would be nice to know I'm not blabbering to myself. Thanks.

Ooh Pretties!

Last half term we took a trip down to London to visit a few of our fave. shops............layouts to follow.

While we were there I wanted to track down a haberdashery shop, VV Rouleaux that's been talked about recently in various mags (SI) and fashion TV programmes (Gok)..... I luv Gok! Anyhow it was one of the first warmest days this year, the tube was packed and my new sandals were giving me gip! But we eventually found it tucked away..........Ooh it's lovely. The only thing is that I have a habit that when i have too many choices and a small budget I end up not buying anything. In the end I just chose a few metres of ribbon that I knew would match some recently purchased papers and a feather butterfly. Some of the heaver braids and more fancier lace are pretty pricey but good to browse through. What i liked the most was that the butterfly they wrapped up in an inflated plastic bag so it looked like one of those fish you win at the fair! (I know your thinking how sad, but I thought it was cute). So I will leave you to coo over my purchases while I get going with some scrapping using those scrumptious ribbons and butterfly.

A & J

As I often say to my friend Jackie, 'We have been through a lot together.....and most of it was your fault! I love this quote and sums up our friendship really. Jackie has some big ideas that usually involve a)Dressing up, b)Props, c)Entertainment and d)Me! I don't really know how it happens but one minute I'm just doing my regular job as a Teaching Assistant then before I know it I've agreed to be a fairy (with wings), on stage, in front of the whole junior school disappearing from a magic box. See what I mean? How does it happen? I don't know but it does liven up my (sometimes stressful) day. Anyway this layout features us both with our Christmas regalia on and tells of our penchant for wearing Christmas accessories and the weird but wonderful game Jackie had organised that day of us pretending to be Santa's Sleighs, Christmas Trees etc (don't ask) All I can say is that the children think we are weird, the staff think we are mad and sometimes my job doesn't seem like work.....with thanks to my special friend.

Get them when their scared!

Yeah OK, I get the cruel mum of the year award. But just look at the terror in that little face. Yes this little boy was forced onto the chairlift in Slovenia two years ago in an attempt to allay his fear of them. Well he did say he wasn't going to like it and well.....he still doesn't. Because of his fears there's loads of walks we are missing out on. So this year, SURPRISE!, we are going to try and get him back on it. (I think I will keep this to myself until a)He reads this or b)On the day of our holiday we tell him. Somehow I don't think it's going to happen. All those views begging to be seen as well.........sigh.

Anyhow back to the layout. I Used all Anna Griffin products except the rub on alpha's and the sentiment. I like it, especially as a two photo layout I sometimes difficult to work with.

By the way, you do know that you can click onto the photo's for a closer look don't you. Good glad you did!

Well scrapping calls, I've got some great photo's of London sights that I'm itching to scrap that I took at the weekend.

See ya for now.

Been Busy!

Been busy recently so sorry for not blogging, but what with the gardening club starting again at school and organising cycling training courses I've not had the time to download my photo's. Even though school life can be busy, sometimes, very occasionally you get to go and help on a school trip.

Yes they are stressful (head counting every five minutes to make sure you have not lost any little ones), making sure they are on their best behaviour etc, etc. But they are still enjoyable and one of the few times you can have a more relaxed relationship with your pupils and they may even start to believe that you are human! So I was lucky enough to be asked to help with the year 2 infant class to Neasden Temple. What a glorious place. Unfortunately it was February so the weather was pretty dull and the photo's I took outside (you were not allowed to take a camera inside) came out quite dark and flat looking. Fortunately I had bought some photo's in the gift shop and so used these for this layout with some Basic Grey papers, lace and bling. It's somewhere I would probably not visit on my own so I'm pleased to of been given the chance, I would definitely recommend it, even just for the amazing architecture and carving.

Easter Treats!

Just wanted to show you some little paint chart notebooks I made for some friends for Easter. I've been wanting to try this idea out for some time after seeing it on the WhiMsy love blog http://whimsy-girl.blogspot.com/2008/10/paint-sample-notebook-tutorial.html. Notice the yellow notebook has the paint name 'Easter Morn'. Quite apt for an Easter gift and pretty cute as well. They only took minutes to make and just the thing if you feel like being crafty but can't be bothered to do a whole scrapbook page and sick of the sight of cards. I'm going to make some more but might need to get some more paint charts as they had run out of the pretty pink colour chart!

A Garlic Moment

So here's the one about the potato cakes.......It all started when we were given a really disgusting local speciality for dinner one night in our Slovakian hotel last year. We are by no means fussy eaters, I think all of us could count on one hand foods that we really don't like. So anyway we were served these grey (not a lie) lumpy, dinner plate size potato cakes (filled with a brown gravy and meat). OK, so they didn't look nice but we were willing to try them.....Ugh! they tasted of really strong garlic (you know it's strong when the garlic tastes sort of salty as well) and nothing else. So at every opportunity after that we were saying the word Garlic in a Peter Kay voice and cracking up laughing at our private joke. So getting back to the layout, this was a garlic moment captured as a goofy smile on the final phoneme of garlic.

So the layout......I like the title as it makes the viewer want to read the journalling as to why Garlic?

The Fancy Pants transparency, BG Aged and confused and Bo Bunny Xtreme Teen all worked together with Roberts bandanna and natural background. I used a Black Market tag for the journalling and my trusty Dymo label maker for 'a garlic moment'.

By the way sorry my posts are so long but all my layouts have a story attached to them, plus I just have a lot to say for myself. So if you do sit and read these.....thanks!

Out Of Control!

Here's some photo's I have been wanting to scrap for some time now of my 13 year old son enjoying himself on holiday in Slovakia. We had just finished a long mountain walk and as we came down from the mountain we came across a small kiddies amusement park. Now remember that Slovakia is only just developing as a tourist area and so apart from the many new holiday apartments and hotels being built at the moment it's not exactly Benidorm! So this amusement park consisted of a couple of run down merry go rounds and this little racing track that was clearly for younger children. Robert isn't exactly your adrenaline junkie (he refuses to go on the chair lifts, which limit our mountain walks) so apart from the racing track the alternative was Quad bikes. The racing tracks won. We had the biggest laugh in ages, he had trouble fitting his legs onto the bikes, difficulty controlling them and crashed into the barriers a few times. But just look at his face, he's loving it!

As I had so many photo's to fit on I needed a striking paper and found this Rusty Pickle Halloween paper matching perfectly with the greenery and the purple sweatshirt. The only problem was that I had cut a square out of one corner for another project. But with careful cutting of strips and matting and layering of the photo's onto purple corrugated and metallic card I managed to finish it. I highlighted the pictures by drawing wonky lines with a permanent pen around them and used the scraps of the photo paper for the journaling.

So kiddie cars 1- Potato cakes 0 ( that's another story and layout I'll show you another time.....)

Where I said YES!

I received some new papers and embellishments recently from the Anna Griffin Sierra Collection.
They are full of natural earthy tones and couldn't wait to use them. This photo of a stone dog was taken at Kew Gardens is at least 10 years old, maybe more. It was originally taken in black and white with film on a manual camera (pre-digital). The journalling tells of Kew's special place in my heart, not just the wonderful gardens and architecture but it's where my hubby proposed to me some twenty plus years ago and I said YES! I will always remember him asking "If I was to ask you if you would marry me, what would you say?" To which I replied "Ask me to find out then".....knowing that i would say yes straight away (how cruel of me...he he).

As you can see I love using lots of patterns together and mostly only use plain card stock for journalling and maybe matting and layering. The felt ribbon was also in the set and the cream flowers fitted perfectly around the matted photo size I had chosen. I used a mix of different alpha

fonts, matching them together by using stazon ink (my fav. as lovely smell, quick drying and can stamp on anything), Adirondack dabber in Pool, red stardust pen and Glossy Accents.

So even 20 years on I'm finding photo's that have strong memories attached to them that I want to preserve as a scrapbook layout, which is nice as it's boring scrapping just about your children or holidays. The next layout.....children and holidays!

That loving feeling...

Said I hadn't been shirking my crafting hadn't I? Here's a little love token I made for my hubby as a Valentine's gift. It's a covered K & Co alphabet box ( knew it would come in useful). Covered it, Prima flowered it and blinged it - done! Added photo which can be changed as box opens. I didn't have many nice up to date photo's of us together so used this one from our holiday to Slovenia 2 years ago. Love that place....hoping to go back soon.....keep dreaming of mountains, beer and cake - not always in that order:)

Japanese Style

Love these Japanese style stamps from Craftwork Cards. I could only afford one set at the time but I can't wait to get some more. Craftwork Cards do some fantastic basics like the scallop blank cards and the delicious looking Card Candy. I have a couple of different sets of the Card Candy together in a jar, they so remind me of midget gem sweets (do you remember them?). Anyway back to the cards, after stamping I coloured them in using shimmery chalks, then layered them onto some textured Amy Butler cardstock. I then inked the edges of the scallops, stamped flowers or swirls that come with the same set, added a greeting and finished with Prima flowers, Stickles and gems.

I particularly like the lime green and pink together. It will have to be to someone special before I let that one go!

Cutie Pie

Hello blog world, yes I'm still here. My only excuse for not blogging is lack of good light for decent photo's, I have been crafting........honestly! So here's one of the projects I've been busy with. This cutie pie is of my son about 13 years ago, he just looks so cute! Now he has morphed into a typical teenager but still has that lovely smile. I don't have cause to use many pastel colours, especially pink on my scrapbook layouts but these Basic Grey (yes them again) really work with his baby blue jumper. I cut around the flowers and butterflies, layered the photo onto a contrasting colour then added some cutout embellishment insects from the same collection. To add depth i added some pearls from an old necklace and then raised some hand drawn clouds with his initials on foam pads. I'm Stickles mad at the moment so added a good measure of sparkle to finish it off. Really pleased with the finished page and what makes it so much more precious is that this used to hang on my dearest Nan's wall. So it reminds me of two special people in one go. That's whats great about scrapbooking, even if you don't journal the photo's can mean so much more than just a moment in time.

Ohhhh Roddy!

Just sharing some cards I made for my family. The first card is for my mum and dads wedding anniversary. I don't like cutting into my 12 x12 cardstock so mostly use 6x6 cardstock for these projects. I particularly liked this Ephemera image of Valentino sweeping some poor woman off her feet into a posed swoon (not quite the image of ma and pa, but suitable for this occasion). Then added some german scrap lace, their initials and some bindi bling.

The next card for my mum's birthday shows an image of mother and child. Added ribbon, flowers and buttons to finish. Both images I printed from the Tuscan Rose 'Can't get enough ephemera' collage CD. Some of the images on this CD are hysterical and I often make cards using it and then adding a suitable quote. On the lookout for a similar CD with more of a 50's era now.