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Sunday 29 December 2013

Week 48 Project Life

Right, week 48, what do we have here? Ooooh quite a busy week, we decided to change some rooms around one afternoon, I think the kids will keep quite about suggestions next time !  It's also the beginning of December and as such, Xmas decorations go up, with three trees now + loads of other stuff its quite an occasion ! Quite a few walks with Florence, she even ended up in the canal after a fateful jump on to what she obviously thought was solid ground! Tom still out there enjoying himself - what an envious life he leads at the moment.




Friday 27 December 2013

Week 47 Project Life

Week 47. Not a huge amount going on this week. Mostly scrapping, Dr Who and Tom in Thailand !

I downloaded some images of the 50th Dr Who special and included them, also documenting our traditional Dr Who tea (party tea) that we can eat whilst watching. I managed to get some layouts into albums and also made some tags that somebody had suggested using manila labels, I jazzed mine up a bit! Some more of the adventures round the world - Thailand this week still, I so wish I could join them! Looking forward to doing wk 48 now!



Sunday 22 December 2013

Week 46 Project Life

You know me, not content to wait till January 1st like lots of new Project Lifers it seems. I'm forging ahead with the past weeks, I may go back ever further than week 45, we'll see. Some weeks we've done loads, others we've been a bit boring or I forgot to take photos. Luckily one of the older boys is off exploring the World, he's also just fallen in love, so I have plenty of photos of exotic locations to flick through and be insanely jealous of, and I've included them in the PL album, as its still part of our family life ! (I'm so tempted to join him though!)



I'm not quite sure what to do with the thin strip down the sides of some of the pockets - any suggestions?


I think I've moved a couple of these bits around since I scanned these in, but it doesn't make that much difference. The beauty of PL, you can change them round whenever you want, you can add or remove photos, you can rewrite areas, nobody would probably even notice!


Wednesday 18 December 2013

Week 45 Project Life

My first real week of Project Life. I think I'll be able to go backwards from this date, I just need to sort out my photos. I've been taking them all summer in the hope of getting started, so hopefully this has given me the push to get on with it!


Luckily I have a child or two that likes posing for dramatic photos, this is very normal and has been part of our life forever, not just for Project Life ! I've also discovered they invented PL to use up all those hundreds of number thickers we never knew what to do with, I'm so glad I saved them all - just in case!


I'm really looking forward to looking at these in a couple of years time, it'll be so fun looking back at the antics of these lot, I so wish I'd started many years ago !


Tuesday 10 December 2013

Project Life Sort Of !!

At last I have delved into the Project Life frenzy !!!

I've had some stash for many months now, mostly Simple Stories and a little Project Life - what do I do with it, what style do I like, too many questions have stopped me even starting. I get it all out, I've cut the sheets into cards, I've played with the little binders, the big photo pockets, but never actually started !

Well I've been inspired - I found this blog and the style is perfect for me - Mish mash. Quite a busy style with lots of journalling, although that's not something I'm good at, so I want to do more, really tell a story of our life !

How I wish I'd started this 26 years ago, what an amazing diary/photo album/scrapbook that would be, (well several I think), a diary of our everyday experiences and life - how fascinating !

I'm taking it easy to start with, I'm taking daily photos for Project life, but haven't started it yet - I SO need a photo printer. But I'm doing our holiday in Turkey for now, what fun, I stayed up Waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too late last night as I was enjoying it so much, I need to add a load more journalling, I'm after a typewriter as I type, I think it will be easier than trying to match up and print cards, I'm excited again !

My first two - ever - pages ! (lots more journalling yet!)




I hope this inspires you to get and start - I know lots of you have got the sets and the cards - you just need to find your own style and get going, it really is addictive !

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Organisation - not something I'm usually good at.


One of my facebook friends posted a photo of her pile of layouts awaiting sorting and then the after pictures in the albums with plain kraft tags hanging from them on the outside - I was impressed!
I had a 15" pile of layouts that needed putting in albums, so inspired, I got all the children's albums out and a lot more that I had collected and started filing them. I haven't finished, I need some more page protectors.

I then set about making some tags, I got plain ones and using the ink distress stains from Tim Holtz, I splotted the inks randomly on my craft mat and then pressed the tags onto them, giving them these lovely mixed colours. I left them to dry. Then using the Memory Box - large classic lower case alphabet, I cut out the letters needed for all the names, I inked them slightly and then glued them to the tags.......I have quite a few more to make though, this is only a small selection of our albums !
But its nice to know that an evening of work has produced some nice little tags, and some space on my desk!

Friday 15 November 2013

A Cheeky Challenge.

I entered this for the Kaisercraft Saturday Nov #3 Sketch challenge, using stars and flowers for the text boxes. I then discovered that Merly Impressions (Kaisercraft UK distributor) had a Blog challenge for December, using stencils. So I'm being a bit cheeky with this as the companies are sort of related......

Kaisercrafts Sketch Challenge


Merly Impressions; this month you have to use a stencil - that's the only rule. I made this layout using a piece of corrugated cardboard torn around, inked with Tim Holtz distress stains, texture pasted through a couple of stencils, a few splatts and some Kaisercraft In the attic collection paper, and some Prima stamps and some studio calico stars. And a photo of my beautiful DD - hope you like it !



Sunday 10 November 2013

Scrap365 Blog Hop


Scrap365  

   Autumn Blog Hop

American Crafts - Autumn Crisp Collection 



All you need to do to be in with a chance of winning this fabulous prize is:




1. Follow the blog hop and collect a word from each of our Design Team.Please leave some blog love for our DT, they love to hear from you!

2. Like us on Facebook. Message the team with the secret phrase.

3. Follow our blog.

4. Then, when you have done all that, return to the Scrap365 blog and leave a comment to let us know you're finished.

Just in case you get stuck, here is the blog hop list:

Scrap365: scrap365.blogspot.co.uk
Kristin: rukristin.com/blog  
Emeline: scrapvilla.blogspot.co.uk 
Elaine:adistressedscrapper.blogspot.co.uk  
Els: bestamped.wordpress.com 
Morag: scrapbook-junkie.blogspot.co.uk
Natalie: njmacs.blogspot.co.uk 
Lizzy: lizzyhill12.blogspot.co.uk 
Marie-Nicolas: www.lescrapdemarienicolas.com 


These two layouts are the ones that I've just taught at a local weekend crop in Swindon. With the Autumn nights drawing in I thought these would be ideal to do. I didn't have enough papers for a full class, so I decided to use two different kits, in almost exactly the same way. What a difference the colours make, I'm not sure which one I prefer now !




My word is; Year's


The closing date will be 16th November 2013. Any entries after that will not be included in the draw. The winner will be announced on Monday, 18th November 2013.Good luck!

Now hop on over to bestamped.wordpress.com and thanks for visiting !!!

Thursday 31 October 2013

Scrapagogo 2013 last layout

Having spent all evening scanning in old photos of the children, I thought I'd have a rest and post the last layout that I faffed around with at Scrapagogo. I loved the original but it was too clean for me as usual, so I've added a few bits, inked and distressed it, and now its ready, I think you'll like it !!


Monday 28 October 2013

Scrapagogo 2013

Here is my take on the classes I took at Scrapagogo for the first time this year. Most of the classes were very clean and tidy, you know me, I can't do clean & tidy, so after a bit of added muck and other stuff, I'm pleased with them. They're not all shown because I haven't quite finished them, I'll add the others later






Here is a link to the actual classes https://www.gogo-getaway.co.uk/gallery.php?cid=101 you'll be able to see the originals before I pimped mine up !!

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Sea Life

A challenge to use non 6x4" photos, not too hard as I use all sorts of different sizes on my pages, but I did particularly like these round ones !

Wednesday 2 October 2013

PaperArts On Tour 2013

Well what fun we had......onsies, hot chocolate, chocolate fountains, make & takes, awesome food, classes and lots & lots of laughs...

I wasn't too mean this year, and remembered by Sunday that most people just wanted an easy layout, without tons of fussy cutting, so this is what we did, or started to do, most had got the basic idea and just had the photos to add ! Hopefully they will be finished before next years PAOT !!!!


 Saturday evenings class was an experiment with tea bags, I thought it worked very effectively. We mixed the tea leaves with some gesso and spread it like sand on the layout, dried it, we then dribbled another soaked teabag over the top to give the old fashioned tea stain. After more drying we inked it with Tim Holtz's distress ink.

 Early Saturday mornings class, a few minor disasters at the beginning, but luckily they were sorted and we did progress, I introduced the ink stain splatters which everybody had a go at, and even those who thought they wouldn't really like them did and a high sale of stains was reported from the PAOT shop......


So that was another very successful PAOT, looking forward again to next year already, I know spaces are selling fast already so get in there and book if you want to go !

Friday 6 September 2013

A multi challenge layout !

A new blog post at last !!! Here is a layout I've used for a couple of challenges, The European Scrap Battle, we had to use the colours from their blog and a new challenge that I've been stalking for a while and not yet done a layout for, despite having 5 boys, http://scraptheboys.blogspot.com.au/  this is an outdoor activity, DS4 is clearing the snow off the drive, hence the slightly rosy cheeks, boredom is setting in too !!

Thursday 1 August 2013

Teaching at Funky Farm Scrapbook Barn

Here is the layout I chose to teach at http://www.funkyfarmscrapbookbarn.co.uk/ last month. I think it was well received and people enjoyed the 'splatts' and the distressing techniques that they hadn't really done before...I think my next class will be in October, so if you're interested start nagging Hayley to put it on the website so you can sign up !!!


Wednesday 12 June 2013

Local crop challenge.

OK, so we had a challenge at my local crop - we were given a pack of papers - not of our choice, to make a layout from. I was naughty I didn't like my first choice and swapped it for one equally awful, then somebody else didn't like theirs, so I swapped again with them....So as reparations, I decided I'd have to do 3 layouts with the pack. I only added one cardstock (with a hole in the middle) and one book page. There were 5 papers in my pack, no cardstock, and whilst the colours weren't my favourite, I did have some photos that would go with them. I think I did quite well !!





Wednesday 5 June 2013

Catch up Time.

Those of you that know me personally are aware that my wonderful, strong, brave husband lost his battle with aggressive brain tumours on the 16th March 2013. We were all devastated, having been given a prognosis of 3-5 years and him only surviving 10 months. We are slowly putting our lives back together, and trying to carry on as were his wishes.....

In memory of Dave Rolfe (25July61-16Mar13)

I have started scrapping again and have found it very therapeutic, especially when going to crops. He always encouraged me to go scrapping as much as possible. I usually went on my own, so luckily I don't find it distressing going off on my own. I've also volunteered for some design work for Scrap365 in the next few weeks, and I hope to get back to teaching, this time at Funky Farm Scrapbook Barn, I just need to get my scrapping head back on!

Tuesday 28 May 2013

CSI 73

We just got back from Turkey (after a two week break) and had these fab photos that tied in perfectly with this weeks challenge. I haven't got round to doing the journaling yet, but I'm sure I will when I've forgotten what we were doing ! I've been using a couple of new dies, the Tim Holtz small film strip, and the papermania travel die which includes this cute little plane, perfect for travel pages.

Friday 15 March 2013

Sketchbook365 April Challenge

My take on this months challenge. I've done a lot of girly ones lately so thought it was about time I did one of the boys. I've had both these photos in my 'to do' pile for many months, good excuse to use both on the same layout. I can still see so much of DS5 in both photos, he doesn't seem to have changed that much, he's still a very sweet, loving boy....I'd rather he didn't grow up, but I suppose I can't change that !
 


Hope you have a go at the challenge details are here http://www.sketchbook365.blogspot.co.uk/ There's a lovely prize for the winner too, so get creating.

Tuesday 26 February 2013

CSI 58, I think..

I didn't get this challenge in on time, due to my DH's health, I was otherwise occupied. But it seemed a shame not to add it late as I'd actually got round to completing a layout. The quality of the scan isn't too good, usually due to the depth of the rosettes, but also after having to re-install my laptop after a visiting child got a major virus on it, I then discovered one of my children has lost the photoshop disk, so not very impressed!