Join me for a mug of something...or a glass...

Hi.  Hello.  How are you?  I feel so bad I have not seen you for so long and have not been on your blog either but things have been a bit manic round here.  But I have caught up (ish), Spring is sprung and so I am glad we can sit down, share a drink together and catch up.

If we were getting together in real life I would take you to the local farm shop where I have discovered they have added a tea room.  We could have a peruse of the yummy bottle and jars on the shelves and then sit down for a brew, a piece of cake (Bakewell tart for me please) or even a bottle of organic beer!  It gets me talking about how I have found baking again and made my own shortbread last week and have plans for a cake with Amaretti biscuits and raspberries.

I would ask you what plans you have for the coming light evening and the Easter holidays?  Are you going anywhere or visiting anyone?  We have a couple of nights booked in Cardiff as the Whovian in the family was promised a trip to the Dr Who Experience for her birthday treat.  We will then head on to my parents' for a couple of nights for home cooking and relative visiting. What's your plan for Easter you ask?  To be back home and hopefully out tidying the garden if the weather will allow.  I've only managed to plant some tubs so far.  And maybe a ramble as Alex needs to get into training for her Duke of Edinburgh expedition coming up.  I also whisper that I have joined a gym and hope to get some more exercise built into my week.  More?  I mean any!

We would no doubt move onto a discussion of crafting activities and I would share with you what a fabulous weekend I had this month in a Herefordshire barn where I scrapped, and ate, drank tea, supped wine, munched cake and laughed until I cried.  A weekend that was good for the soul. I made 7 layouts in total and have shared them all on here - thank you for your comments if you have left some.  I really love to read them.  I would tell you of my plans to decorate a journal/diary but they are only plans as the book is taking a long time to arrive!  Hopefully I will have something to show you next time.

I ask after your family and let you know that mine are all fine. Tony and I celebrated our "20 years since we got together anniversary" yesterday and as always he is my rock.  Alex is revising hard for her mock GCSEs and Josh continues to be obsessed by screens and gaming.  But he did manage a whole weekend away from them this month at Scout camp.

Tunisia - 1997

Before I know it there are just crumbs remaining on our plates and no more tea in the pot.  It's time to head off and get back to running errands, cooking tea for the family and preparing for work tomorrow.  At least it's only one day until the weekend!

I am linking up with Abi from Creating Paper Dream for her monthly meme. Please leave a comment below and let me know what you would share over a cup of tea and head on over to Abi's to share your own post.

Final page from Meadow Barn...12 on the 12th

This is the last page I have to share from my retreat.  I caught up on all my Sketchy Scrappers challenges and this one was set by the lovely Sandra.

Sandra set us an extra, surprise challenge by asking us to use this colour prompt too.

I flipped the sketch and found some papers in a Gossamer Blue kit as close as I could to the colour prompt and made the page below.  I really liked have the colours to guide me as I probably wouldn't have scrapped this picture in these colours.  I also added some more bits from my "For goodness sake use me up" pile!

The journaling reads "A lovely summers' eve, chocolate cake & strawberries, Matty for tea, presents and your candle.  Happy Birthday!

52 card challenge - Week 11

Week 11's challenge was to use the traditional wedding rhyme;

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue.

My something old was some plastic clear ribbon with stars on from my "for goodness sake use it up" pile.

For my something borrowed I used a PageMaps card sketch from March 2013;

My something new was a Heidi Swapp stencil I purchased on Saturday.  (I visited Crap Apple Crafts hoping to have a good old shop and came out with three things, one if which was a new glue! Was not impressed!!)

And the something blue was a tag from one of my Gossamer Blue kits which I added another blue sticker too...

A simple card to cheer up a friend :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Be Merry!

I decided not to do a Journal Your Christmas album this year as working full-time meant it was too big a commitment.  Instead I documented my December in pocketed pages.  Some weeks I had a lot to say whereas others were quite quiet.  In fact it actually started on 30th November for our couples Christmas Do...

Then the kids December production of Wicked at school and a special awards night for me...

Christmas tree selection, new ornaments for the tree and my kittens joined my in the craft room/study and made themselves at home!..

Girls night out in Manchester, new school photos ready for the Christmas cards and Christmas Jumper Day...

Open air Ice Skating at Spinningfields, Manchester followed by Alex demolishing a full rack of ribs (again!)...

Chrstmas Eve, a friend's card and the kid's lists...

Christmas morning; stockings, a new straw for Alex and annual reading in bed...

I finished it with a double page of Christmas day photos very simply embellished (not shown) and then this 12x12 of Alex and Josh after Christmas Dinner all using the same December Documented collection from Simple Stories...

I'm not sure I'd do this every month but I think I will definitely do it again if there is something special happening :)

52 Card Challenge - Weeks 7 - 10 (well 10-7!)

Caught up with some card making yesterday.  Didn't have the choice really as Alex had taken over the other desk to make magnets for her fundraising! So all I could do was squeeze onto the other desk (usually the one I use as a study desk) and ask her to keep passing me tools and bits of stash!

Here are the cards I made.  Firstly Week 10 which was a prompt jar week of wood, plastic and stickers.  The strip across the middle has a woodgrain effect, I added a plastic flower which is sat on a sticker...


Week 9 was a picture prompt;

I went with the flowers, the gold, the doilies and the colours.  Although my felt trim looks more turquoise than mint green against the photo! Added a Mum to this one as it will be for Mother-In-Law next weekend :)


Week 8 was a sketch prompt;

I kept this one simple and made a more masculine card as I never have any of those in my basket when I need them!


Finally Week 7 was a colour prompt;

A lovely selection of colours and at first I thought I would have to stamp or get creative to make the card but then I found a sheet of paper with this blue floral pattern and the green chevron on the back from Crate Paper and added some cream card run through an embossing folder and a piece of bling from my "for goodness sake use me up" pile!!


A new prompt goes live tomorrow but I still have a few days before I am due back at work so hope I can catch up! And I'll leave you with the magnets Alex made.  She sold £10 worth today and has another chance to make some more funds at church parade next week :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

52 Card challenges - Weeks 5 and 6

Didn't catch up with these challenges at my Meadow Barn retreat but trying to put a dent in them this week.  Firstly Week 5 which was to use a prompt of glitter, pale and love.  I didn't have any real pale papers so these were the closest and then I used some stickles on my heart paper for the other two elements.  This is a card for hubby as we met 20 years ago this coming Thursday.


Yesterday I then went and did the challenge again as stupid me read the prompts wrong!  For this one the paper already came ready glittered and I added a heart for the love element.


Week 6 was "to create a card where the vast majority of items are from the same collection." These cards where all made from the remnants of the Fancy Pants - Be You papers and I made three altogether including the middle one for my daughter to wish her luck for her first GCSE she has to take this year.

Hopefully I can do a couple more today if I can squeeze my darling daughter out of my work space as she is currently making magnets to sell to fund raise for her overseas trip with Girlguiding UK and I can't get a look in!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

3 kits killed!

I managed 7 layouts at Meadow Barn and three were the remnants of past Sarah's Cards' kits.  One I've posted already which was the Epcot layout and here are two more...

Spongebob Squarepants using Fancy Pants - Be you

 and Our Fur Babies using Cosmo Cricket - Tea for Two

I added a few bits from my own stash.  Mostly from the pot of odds and ends that I need to reduce down too!  A real stash busting session if ever there was one.  The second one was also a sketchy scrappers sketch challenge.

I also made a few cards with the leftovers which I'll share soon and then I threw the scraps away as I thought there was nothing more I could do with them.  But oh no!  Tara, who I was sat next too, decided to empty them out of the bin and make another card or two.  After that point I just passed the scraps straight over to save her rummaging!!!

UKS March Challenge

Whilst away at Meadow Barn I had a crack at the March House Challenge on UKS.  I don't normally look at this but I do love a sketch challenge.  This was the one we were asked to use...

And using a Gossamer Blue kit I came up with this...

I scrapped a photo from Jan 2013 when it started snowing late one Friday eve and we got the kids out of bed and bundled into coats, scarfs and hats to go and play in it!  We stayed out til about 10pm and the close was so quiet apart from the crunching of our feet and the giggles from the kids!

An Epcot scraplift

Ever since I spotted  Louise's Epcot layout I knew I wanted to recreate it with our own family photo from the same park. Killing another Sarah's Cards kit - Cosmo Cricket ~ Early Bird - in the process and adding some embellies from a pot of "oddments" I have left from other kits.  I challenged myself to use some on everything I made at the retreat and I think I did that about 80% of the time!

And here is Louise's beautiful original...

I would thoroughly recommend you follow her blog to see all the fabulous pages she makes.

Whilst our Florida trip was nearly 5 years ago I still have several photos left to scrap and it's so lovely to go back and relive the memories through scrapping.

Loving the Lakes

While away on my retreat this weekend I turned to the UKS Challenge for some inspiration.  The challenge was to...

As Spring is approaching we decided to ask you to use bright and cheerful colours (there have been too many grey/cloudy skies recently!)

We would also like you to use a happy fun photograph(or more than one)

Add a project life type card to the layout (this can be a card by any brand or one cut from a 12 x 12 sheet or one you have printed/made yourself) just tell us where you have used it

Finally we randomly allocated a team mate for each of us to scraplift but you can choose whoever you want from the Chatty Scrappers team, just add a link to the page you have chosen to scraplift

I chose to scraplift this page by Shyleir;

Ans this is how my layout turned out;

I used a Gossamer Blue kit and some extra bits from my own stash.  I love this photo of Josh on the shores of Wastwater last year.  He really loved the Lakes.

Thanks for stopping by and I'm looking forward to sharing some more pages from my productive (and extremely fun) weekend away last week.